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Reminiscences  of 
Early  Chicago 


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ROM  TmE  ENGR  AV  I  rs(  O  ©  V   F  .  T  .  S^  UA«T.  BOSTOp 


Reminiscences  of 
Early  Chicago 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 

BY 

MABEL  McILVAINE 


^be  HaftejfiDe  ^reisfj*,  Chicago 

R.  R.  DONNELLEY  &   SONS  COMPANY 

CHRISTMAS,  MCMXII 


^VLbli&^tx^'  l^teface 


THE  great  interest  aroused  a  year  ago  by 
the  publication  of  the  Autobiography 
of  Gurdon  Saltonstall  Hubbard  in  the 
annual  volume  of  The  Lakeside  Classics  has 
influenced  the  publishers  to  seek  more  mate- 
rial pertaining  to  the  pioneer  days  of  Chicago 
as  the  subject  for  this  year's  volume.  Unfortu- 
nately no  one  work  of  appropriate  size  and  sus- 
tained interest  has  been  found  available;  but 
in  the  selections  from  the  writings  of  Charles 
Fenno  Hoffman  and  Harriet  Martineau,  two 
talented  travelers  who  visited  Chicago  when  it 
was  a  village,  in  an  historical  address  by  John 
Wentworth,  and  in  the  reminiscences  of  Mr. 
Wentworth,  Mr,  J.  Y.  Scammon,  and  Judge 
John  Caton  at  the  Old  Settlers'  Reunion  of  the 
Calumet  Club  in  1879  the  publishers  believe 
they  have  found  material  that  teems  with  the 
spirit  of  the  days  of  early  Chicago,  and  gives 
an  intimate  picture  of  what  Chicago  really 
was  in  the  thirties. 

To  Miss  Mabel  Mcllvaine  is  due  great  credit 
for  her  untiring  efforts  in  searching  out  these 
selections  from  the  great  mass  of  material  in 
the  library  of  the  Chicago  Historical  Society, 
and  for  her  Introduction.  Acknowledgment 
is  also  due  the  officers  of  the  Calumet  Club 


476020 

uasers 


^nhlt^f^tt^'  preface 


for  permission  to  print  the  three  selections  from 
the  report  of  the  Old  Settlers'  Reunion,  and  to 
Mr.  Moses  J.  Wentworth  for  the  copy  from 
which  the  portrait  of  his  uncle  is  reproduced 
as  a  frontispiece. 

The  subject-matter  of  these  little  volumes 
and  the  fact  that  they  began  their  annual 
appearance  ten  years  ago  is  liable  to  obscure 
the  purpose  of  their  production, —  to  furnish 
a  concrete  example  of  how  useful  and  good 
a  book  can  be  made  at  small  expense.  The 
fact  that  they  are  the  work  of  the  indentured 
apprentices  of  The  Lakeside  Press  gives  them 
additional  interest  in  these  days  of  agitation 
for  vocational  education.  The  book  is  not  for 
sale,  but  at  this  kindly  season  is  sent  to  the 
friends  and  patrons  of  The  Press  with  the 
good  wishes  of 

THE    PUBLISHERS. 

Christmas,  1912. 


VI 


Contentis 


PAGE 

Introduction xi 

Charles  Fenno  Hoffman     .     .     .     .       i 
Selection  from  "A  Winter  in  the  West" 

Harriet  Martineau 27 

Selection  from  "Society  in  America" 

John  Wentworth 43 

Lecture  before  the  Sunday  Lecture  Society 
John  Wentworth 125 

Address  at  the  Reception  to  the  Settlers  of 
Chicago  Prior  to  1840 

John  Dean  Caton 153 

Address  at  the  Reception  to  the  Settlers  of 
Chicago  Prior  to  1840 

Jonathan  Young  Scammon  .     .  .167 

Address  at  the  Reception  to  the  Settlers  of 
Chicago  Prior  to  1840 


Introduction 


3IntrDDuctton 


THE  history  of  Chicago  in  the  early  por- 
tion of  its  cityhood  is,  to  a  large  extent, 
the  history  of  the  American  frontier  in 
the  thirties  and  early  forties.  Hence  a  study 
of  early  Chicago's  people  and  institutions  is 
of  more  than  local  interest.  To  the  Chicago 
Historical  Society  we  are  indebted  for  the 
privilege  of  reprinting,  from  rare  volumes  in 
their  possession,  such  matter  as  illustrates  this 
theme  from  the  viewpoint  of  a  well-known  New 
York  writer,  of  an  Englishwoman  of  letters, 
and  of  three  typical  Chicagoans. 

Mr.  Charles  Fenno  Hoffman,  M.  A.,  from 
whose  Winter  in  the  West  we  have  selected 
the  portion  about  Chicago,  was  born  in  New 
York  in  i8o6,  graduated  from  Columbia  College, 
and  in  1827  was  admitted  to  the  bar.  From 
1833  to  1847  he  was  editorially  connected  with 
The  American  Monthly  Magazine,  founded 
The  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  edited  The  New 
York  Mirror,  and,  in  1846-47,  instituted  The 
Literary  World.  His  Winter  in  the  West, 
published  first  in  the  form  of  letters  in  The 
American  Monthly,  was  in  183  5  brought  out 
in  book  form  in  New  York  and  London,  under 
the  pseudonym  "A  New  Yorker."  It  filled 
two  duodecimo  volumes,  from  the  first  of  which 


3Fntrotiuction 


our  selections  are  made.  Poet  and  novelist, 
as  well  as  editor,  Mr.  Hoffman  was,  at  the 
time  of  his  visit  to  Chicago,  beginning  to  be 
regarded  as  one  of  America's  foremost  litte- 
rateurs. Oddly  enough,  however,  it  is  by  his 
two  early  books  of  travel,  A  Winter  in  the 
West,  and  Wild  Life  in  Forest  and  Prairie, 
that  he  is  best  known  to-day.  Mr.  Hoffman 
had,  in  youth,  lost  a  leg  through  an  accident, 
but  had  persisted  with  athletic  exercise,  and 
made  the  trip  to  Chicago  on  horseback.  Of 
his  adventures  by  the  way  and  of  his  impres- 
sions on  his  arrival  we  shall  learn  in  the  pages 
that  follow. 

The  next  visitor  of  note  to  Chicago  from 
whom  we  have  derived  a  picture  of  the  early 
conditions  here,  was  no  less  a  personage  than 
Miss  Harriet  Martineau,  the  distinguished 
English  authoress.  In  the  preface  to  her  work 
on  Society  in  America,  published  in  1837,  she 
states  that  her  object  in  coming  to  this  country 
was  "to  compare  the  existing  state  of  society 
in  America  with  the  principles  upon  which  it 
was  professedly  founded."  In  her  Autobi- 
ography, written  long  years  after,  she  states 
that  her  own  choice  for  a  title  to  the  book  was 
"Theory  and  Practice  of  Society  in  America" 
—  obviously  implying  a  doubt  of  our  adherence 
to  those  principles.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  when  she  came  to  this  country,  in  1834, 
America  was  in  the  utmost  confusion  on  the 
subject  of  slavery — a  question  which  England 


SFnttotiuction 


had  practically  settled  at  that  time.  Miss 
Martineau,  in  response  to  urgent  request,  at  a 
meeting  in  favor  of  Abolition  expressed  some 
sentiments  in  favor  of  equality  of  the  races,  and 
was  reported  as  being  an  advocate  of  Amalga- 
mation. 

Too  considerate  and  too  courageous  to  be 
intimidated  by  this,  however,  Miss  Martineau 
continued  her  tour  of  the  country,  visiting  all 
sections,  and  remaining  two  years.  As  the 
author  of  the  thirty-four- volume  series  of  Illus- 
trations of  Political  Economy,  besides  numerous 
tales  for  the  young,  and  as  the  friend  of  such 
men  as  Carlyle,  James  Stuart  Mill,  Hallam, 
Grote,  Browning,  Coleridge,  and  most  of 
the  other  great  names  in  English  politics 
and  letters — herself,  notwithstanding  her  deaf- 
ness, a  woman  of  much  social  grace  —  Miss 
Martineau  was  well  received  by  all  people 
of  larger  vision.  Her  interest  in  political 
matters  led  her  to  Washington  for  the  session 
of  Congress,  where  she  was  sought  out  by  the 
eminent  men  of  all  parties,  among  them  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  Ex-President  Madison,  Henry 
Clay,  John  Calhoun,  and  Daniel  Webster. 
Then  followed  a  trip  through  the  South  while 
the  Virginia  Legislature  was  in  session,  a  long 
visit  at  the  home  of  Dr.  Channing  in  Newport, 
and  a  winter  in  Boston  during  the  session  of 
the  Massachusetts  Legislature. 

"My  last  journey,"  she  wrote  in  the  Intro- 
duction to  Society  in  Ajnerica,  from  which  work 


2Fnttotiuctxmi 


we  reprint  the  part  devoted  to  Chicago,  "was 
with  a  party  of  friends  far  into  the  West, 
visiting  Niagara  again,  proceeding  by  Lake 
Erie  to  Detroit,  and  across  the  territory  of 
Michigan.  Here  we  swept  around  the  south- 
em  extremity  of  Lake  Michigan  to  Chicago, 
went  a  day's  journey  down  into  the  prairies, 
back  to  Chicago,  and  by  Lakes  Michigan, 
Huron,  and  St.  Clair  to  Detroit,  visiting  Mack- 
inaw by  the  way,  and  returned  to  New  York 
from  Pittsburg  by  the  canal  route  through 
Pennsylvania  and  the  railroad  over  the  Alle- 
ghanies." 

That  Miss  Martineau  included  Chicago  in 
her  itinerary  is  matter  of  congratulation  to  its 
inhabitants.  In  her  clear  prose  are  presented 
invaluable  portraits  of  some  of  our  local  heroes 
and  heroines,  and  the  social  atmosphere  of  the 
place  is  preserved.  In  the  "wife  of  the 
Indian  agent, ' '  with  whom  she  dined,  we  recog- 
nize Mrs.  John  H.  Kinzie,  the  authoress  of 
Waubun,  and  in  what  follows,  the  latter's 
version  of  the  Fort  Dearborn  massacre.  In 
speaking  of  the  land  speculation  in  Chicago, 
which  was  at  its  height  during  her  visit.  Miss 
Martineau  mentions  a  young  "  lawyer"  who  had 
been  "realizing  I500  per  day  for  five  days  by 
merely  making  out  land  titles."  This  lawyer 
has  been  identified  by  Mr.  Augustus  H.  Burley 
and  by  Fernando  Jones  as  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  the 
friend  of  Lincoln  and  founder  of  a  family  which 
is  still  of  social  prominence  in  Chicago.     In  the 


SFntrotiuctitm 


"town  crier" — a  familiar  figure  in  the  streets — 
has  been  recognized  "Darkey  George,"  or 
George  White,  whose  office  took  the  place  of  a 
newspaper  in  announcing  land  sales. 

It  is  evident  that  Chicago  was  doing  her  best 
to  entertain  the  distinguished  guest,  for  besides 
the  "fancy  fair"  given  on  the  evening  of  her 
arrival,  Mr.  Jones  used  to  speak  of  going  with 
his  sister  to  meet  Miss  Martineau  at  the  home  of 
William  B.  Ogden,  the  mayor,  and  Mr.  Burley 
told  of  a  reception  being  held  for  her  at  the  home 
of  Mrs.  John  Wright,  "at  the  point  where 
Madison  Street  and  Michigan  Avenue  now 
meet,"  adding  that  there  was  then  no  other 
house  between  that  point  and  Fort  Dearborn 
on  the  river  bank.  At  that  time  Mr.  Burley 
was  quizzed  a  little  about  "getting  into  a  liter- 
ary circle,"  but  explained,  with  his  usual  wit, 
that  he  had  come  to  Chicago  a  short  time 
before  and  entered  his  brother's  book  store, 
hence  "knew  enough  book  titles  to  put  on 
literary  airs."  He  added  that  Chicagoans  of 
that  time  were  "fully  aware  of  Miss  Martineau's 
importance  in  the  literary  world,"  and  that 
"her  manners  left  a  favorable  impression." 
In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note  Miss 
Martineau's  own  comment:  "There  is  some 
allowable  pride  in  the  place  about  its  society.  It 
is  a  remarkable  thing  to  meet  such  an  assem- 
blage of  educated,  refined,  and  wealthy  persons 
as  may  be  found  there,  living  in  small,  incon- 
venient houses  on  the  edge  of  a  wild  prairie." 


3Fntrotiuctton 


Turning  now  to  the  more  intimate  annals  of 
early  Chicago  as  witnessed  by  the  men  actu- 
ally engaged  in  making  history  here,  we  have 
the  honor  to  present  to  the  reader  "Long 
John"  Wentworth — perhaps  our  most  char- 
acteristic specimen  of  the  early  thirties. 

Mr.  Hoffman,  in  describing  a  ball  which  he 
attended  in  Chicago,  alludes  to  the  "  broghans" 
worn  by  the  gentlemen.  In  the  Museum  of 
the  Chicago  Historical  Society  is  a  certain 
exhibit  labeled:  "  Slipper  of  Long  John  Went- 
worth." Had  the  "New  Yorker"  seen  this 
particular  exhibit,  a  stronger  expression  than 
"broghans"  might  have  escaped  him.  The 
slipper  measures  fourteen  inches  from  stem 
to  stern,  and  five  or  six  through  the  beam. 
Its  owner  was  built  in  proportion,  measuring 
six  feet  seven  in  his  stockings,  and  weighing  in 
his  prime  over  three  hundred  pounds. 

It  is  said  that  when  Long  John  arrived  in 
Chicago,  October  25,  1836,  he  was  barefoot, 
carrying  his  shoes  on  a  stick  over  his  shoulder, 
and  his  other  baggage  in  a  blue-and-white 
bandanna.  Dick  Whittington  arriving  in 
London  with  nothing  but  his  cat  by  the  way  of 
luggage,  could  hardly  have  come  in  humbler 
guise,  nor  have  fulfilled  in  lordlier  fashion  the 
later  fortune  which  awaited  him. 

The  first  meal  eaten  in  Chicago  by  this 
mayor-in-the-making  and  congressman-to-be 
was  served  to  him  by  Mrs.  John  Murphy,  in 
the  historic  Sauganash  Hotel.     It  is  said  that 


S^ntrotiuction 


in  memory  of  that  meal  Long  John  dined  with 
Mrs.  Murphy  on  the  anniversary  of  the  occa- 
sion to  the  end  of  his  Hfe. 

When  starting  out  from  his  home  in  New 
Hampshire,  young  Wentworth  had  one  hun- 
dred dollars  in  money  and  two  letters  of  intro- 
duction. The  money  must  have  been  consumed 
on  the  long  journey,  for  soon  after,  he  arrived 
in  Chicago,  he  is  reported  to  have  borrowed 
from  Mark  Beaubien  enough  funds  to  set  him 
up  as  a  printer,  promising  in  return  to  print 
a  newspaper.  On  the  twenty-third  day  of  the 
following  month  he  issued  Volume  I,  Number 
I,  of  The  Chicago  Weekly  Democrat,  and  his 
career  was  begun. 

John  Wentworth  was  born  in  Sandwich, 
New  Hampshire,  March  5,  181 5, — the  grand- 
son of  John  Wentworth,  a  member  of  the  Conti- 
nental Congress,  and  of  Amos  Cogswell,  a 
colonel  in  the  Revolutionary  Army.  In  May, 
1836,  he  was  graduated  from  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege, at  the  age  of  twenty-one. 

During  the  winters  of  1836  and  1837  meet- 
ings were  being  held  in  Chicago  to  consider 
the  expediency  of  organizing  the  little  six- 
square-mile  village  into  a  city.  Long  John 
attended  these  meetings  and  helped  Chicago 
obtain  a  city  charter. 

When  matters  had  reached  a  point  where  a 
municipal  election  was  to  be  held,  he  became 
secretary  of  the  Nominating  Committee.  In 
August,  1837,  came  the  convention  to  nomi- 


^Fntratiuttion 


nate  officers  for  the  County  of  Cook,  and  again 
Long  John  was  the  secretary.  When  Chicago's 
first  corporation  printer  was  elected,  it  was 
twenty-two-year-old  "Long  John"  Wentworth 
who  secured  the  office,  which  he  held  for  the 
better  part  of  twenty-five  years,  his  paper, 
The  Weekly  Democrat,  thus  becoming  the  offi- 
cial organ  of  the  city  council. 

In  1840  The  Weekly  Democrat  became  a 
daily  paper,  the  chief  newspaper  of  the  North- 
west, and,  with  Long  John  as  its  editor, 
publisher,  and  proprietor,  so  continued  until 
1 86 1,  being  known  as  the  "hard  money"  paper 
of  the  Jackson  type. 

Incident  to  his  other  labors,  Long  John 
studied  law  in  Chicago,  attended  lectures  at 
Harvard,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1841. 

John  Wentworth  was  elected  to  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States  and  took  his  seat  Decem- 
ber 4,  1843,  St  the  age  of  twenty-eight,  the 
youngest  member  in  the  House.  He  served 
until  March  3,  185 1,  and  again  from  December, 
1853,  until  March  3,  1855,  twelve  years  in  all. 
Of  national  politics,  he  wrote:  "My  con- 
gressional terms  embraced  every  crisis  in  the 
slavery  agitation,  beginning  with  the  discussion 
respecting  the  propriety  of  annexing  Texas, 
and  ending  with  the  adoption  of  the  constitu- 
tional amendments  establishing  the  equality  of 
all  persons  before  the  law."  He  adds,  "In 
view  of  my  frontier  residence,  the  speaker 
placed  me  upon  the  Committee  upon  Terri- 


5Fntrotiuction 


tories,  and  I  was  the  only  northwestern  man 
upon  it.  I  had  to  be  the  mouthpiece  upon 
that  committee  of  all  the  settlements  in  the 
wilds  of  Wisconsin  and  Iowa,  extending  to  the 
British  possessions  on  the  north,  and  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains  on  the  west." 

A  wonderful  group  of  men  were  in  Wash- 
ington in  Wentworth's  time.  In  his  Congres- 
sional Reminiscences  Long  John  has  left  us  vivid 
personal  anecdotes  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
John  C.  Calhoun,  Thomas  Benton,  Henry 
Clay,  and  Daniel  Webster. 

When  Webster  had  visited  Chicago  in  1837 
to  make  his  great  Whig  speech,  John  Went- 
worth  had  reviewed  it  in  his  Chicago  Democrat. 
When  the  River  and  Harbor  bill  of  1 846  was 
pending,  Wentworth  came  before  the  Com- 
mittee to  defend  the  construction  of  a  harbor 
at  Little  Fort  (now  Waukegan)  in  Illinois. 
None  of  the  senators  knew  the  needs  of  this 
part  of  the  Great  Lakes,  and  the  Committee 
was  hostile.  Long  John,  meeting  Daniel 
Webster  in  the  street  in  Washington,  reminded 
him  that  on  his  visit  to  Chicago  in  1837  his 
vessel  might  have  been  sunk  had  a  storm  arisen 
around  the  southern  end  of  Lake  Michigan. 
With  this  as  a  text,  Webster  made  one  of  his 
great  flights  of  oratory,  depicting  such  a  storm. 
The  bill  passed.  President  Polk  vetoed  it. 
"And  out  of  his  veto,"  wrote  Wentworth, 
"grew  that  wonderful  event  in  the  history  of 
Chicago,  the  River  and  Harbor  Convention  of 


^Fntrotiurtion 


1847,  a  vast  assemblage,  composed  of  the  most 
talented,  enterprising,  wealthy,  and  influential 
men  of  all  parts  of  the  country." 

On  the  morning  after  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  passed  the  House,  there 
was  a  gathering  of  Democrats  and  Whigs  at 
Crutchet's  in  Washington,  and  among  them 
was  John  Wentworth.  It  was  resolved  to  ignore 
all  party  lines  and  form  an  anti-slavery  party. 
Out  of  this  grew  the  Republican  party,  with 
which  Wentworth  afterwards  acted. 

Long  John  Wentworth  was  elected  mayor 
of  Chicago  in  1857,  and  again  in  i860  —  the 
first  Republican  mayor  elected  in  the  United 
States  after  the  formation  of  the  party.  And 
what  a  mayor  he  did  make!  To  this  day  in 
Chicago  the  older  men  may  be  heard  to  say, 
when  certain  manifestations  of  corruption 
appear,  "That  would  not  have  happened  in 
Long  John's  time."  In  these  days  of  vice 
investigation  and  careful  dealing  with  socio- 
logical questions  of  all  kinds,  it  is  not  out  of 
place  to  mention  the  destruction,  under  Long 
John's  leadership,  of  a  far-reaching  district  of 
disrepute  known  as  "The  Sands, ' '  which  existed 
near  the  lake  shore,  north  of  Kinzie  and  east  of 
Pine  Street.  Finding  all  ordinary  and  legal 
procedure  insufficient.  Long  John  caused  to  be 
printed  a  quantity  of  hand-bills  announcing  a 
dog  fight  on  the  West  Side.  While  the 
denizens  of  "The  Sands"  were  largely  attend- 
ing the  dog  fight,  he,  axe-in-hand  and  followed 


^Fntrotiuction 


by  an  army  of  police,  tore  down  and  burned 
their  shanties  and  completely  effaced  this  blot 
on  Chicago's  lake  front. 

Countless  legends  of  Long  John's  mayoralty 
are  current  in  Chicago.  It  was  one  of  his 
customs  to  prowl  about  the  streets  at  night, 
to  ascertain  if  the  police  were  doing  their  duty, 
and  many  a  criminal  found  himself  conveyed 
to  the  lock-up  by  the  long  arm  of  His  Honor, 
the  Mayor.  A  saloon-keeper  who  had  cheated 
one  of  Long  John's  employees  was  thus  dragged 
bodily  across  his  bar  and  clapped  into  jail, 
without  a  warrant,  all  for  a  deficit  of  thirty- 
five  cents  in  change. 

Wentworth's  most  distinguished  duty  dur- 
ing his  mayoralty  was  the  entertainment  of 
Albert  Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  who,  as  a 
stripling  on  a  voyage  of  discovery,  visited 
Chicago.  Charles  Harpel  quotes  an  intro- 
duction of  the  Prince  to  the  crowd  standing 
around  the  balcony  of  the  Richmond  House: 
"Boys, "said  Mr.  Wentworth,  "this  is  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  He  has  come  here  to  see 
the  city  and  I  am  going  to  show  him  around. 
Prince,  these  are  the  boys!"  Another  story, 
for  which  the  writer  is  indebted  to  Fernando 
Jones,  of  fruitful  memory,  is  as  follows: 
Standing  on  Rush  Street  bridge  watching  the 
loading  of  a  cargo  of  grain  to  be  shipped  to 
Queen  Victoria  as  a  gift  from  the  city  of 
Chicago,  the  young  prince  carelessly  spat  into 
the  grain.     "Stop  that,  young  man!"  yelled 


^Fntrotiuction 


Wentworth.  '  'Don't  you  know  any  better  than 
to  spit  into  a  load  of  grain  that  is  going  to 
your  honored  mother?  Don't  let  me  see  you 
do  that  again!" 

One  of  John  Wentworth's  favorite  haunts 
was  the  Chicago  Historical  Society.  He 
attended  every  meeting.  Finding  himself  and 
one  other  the  only  members  present  on  the 
occasion  of  a  certain  quarterly  meeting,  he 
promptly  made  the  other  man  secretary,  ap- 
pointed himself  chairman,  and  proceeded  to 
hold  a  meeting  which  was  devoted  to  an  hour's 
address  on  "The  Life  and  Achievements  of 
Long  John  Wentworth" — all  duly  reported 
in  the  papers  the  next  day. 

Had  John  Wentworth  possessed  no  other 
talent,  he  might  have  made  a  name  solely  as 
an  historian.  A  three-volume  history  of  the 
Wentworth  family  marks  his  activities  in  the 
genealogical  field.  But  his  great  delight  was 
in  local  history — and  Chicago  owes  the  preser- 
vation from  oblivion  of  her  earlier  years  largely 
to  the  indefatigable  researches  of  this  true 
Chicagoan.  Nothing  was  too  much  trouble. 
At  the  meetings  of  the  Calumet  Club  or  at  the 
Historical  Society,  where  old  settlers  were 
wont  to  gather,  he  would  stand  for  hours  reel- 
ing off  names  of  citizens,  with  the  date  of  their 
arrival,  and  something  about  each.  He  had 
the  true  historian's  instinct  —  the  faculty  for 
preserving  "local  color."  And  yet  he  never 
romanced.     Employing  his  large  means  —  for 


S^ntrotiuction 


he  died  worth  a  fortune — he  amassed  from 
every  quarter  the  sources  of  information, 
and  urged  upon  others  the  preservation,  in  a 
fire-proof  building,  of  such  things  as  old  news- 
papers, pamphlets,  letters,  deeds,  and  the  like. 

Among  the  most  valued  possessions  of  the 
Chicago  Historical  Society  is  a  volume  en- 
riched by  his  own  manuscript  emendations  and 
additions,  and  containing  two  addresses,  the 
first  of  which  is  entitled  :  *  ^ Early  Chicago,  a 
lecture  delivered  before  the  Sunday  Lecture 
Society,  at  McCorniick  Hall,  on  Sunday  after- 
noon, May  y,  i8j6,  by  Hon.  John  We?it'Worth, 
late  editor,  publisher  and  proprietor  of  the 
^Chicago  Democrat,'  the  first  corporation  news- 
paper; member  of  Congress  for  the  Chicago 
district  for  twelve  years;  two  terms  mayor; 
and  a  settler  of  1836. ' '  This  lecture  we  here 
reproduce. 

The  second  occasion  upon  which  Wentworth 
appears  in  his  own  person  and  as  the  chief 
performer,  in  this  book  of  Reminiscences,  is  the 
now  famous  reception  to  the  settlers  of 
Chicago  prior  to  1840,  by  the  Calumet  Club 
of  Chicago,  Tuesday  evening,  May  2"/ ,  1879. 

It  is  proposed  of  late  to  preserve  in  libraries 
by  means  of  the  phonograph,  for  future  ages, 
the  very  voices  of  the  speakers  on  such  occa- 
sions. Long  John  is  said  to  have  had  a  voice 
to  match  his  person.  If  he  had  spoken  into 
a  phonograph  what  a  "record"  he  might 
have  made!     In  his  speeches  we  have  the  very 


^Fntrotiuttion 


quintessence  of  Chicago.  If  nothing  else  ex- 
isted to  tell  us  of  "the  early  day,"  these  frag- 
ments would  suffice.  They  are  the  more  valuable 
in  that  the  speaker  felt  that  he  need  not  impress 
his  hearers  with  his  importance.  Long  John 
was  talking  to  his  friends  of  half  a  century,  and 
no  little  quip  or  quirk  by  which  any  old-time 
figure  could  be  brought  vividly  to  mind  was 
beneath  his  dignity. 

On  October  i6,  1888,  occurred  the  death  of 
Hon.  John  Wentworth — in  his  long-time  domi- 
cile, the  old  Sherman  House.  The  journals 
of  the  day  are  full  of  headlines  such  as  "Long 
John  is  no  more";  "The  remains  lying  in 
state";  and  the  obituary  notices  filled  whole 
pages,  as  if  for  a  President.  But  one  President 
has  ever  occupied  a  larger  place  in  the  horizon 
of  the  state  of  Illinois,  or  done  more  to  create 
an  actual  body  politic  out  of  the  scattered 
settlers  of  a  nation's  frontier. 

On  the  same  platform  with  John  Wentworth 
at  that  memorable  meeting  of  the  Calumet  Club 
were  two  other  men  who  had,  each  in  his  way, 
occupied  almost  as  conspicuous  a  place  in 
the  public  attention  of  Chicago — Ex-Chief 
Justice  John  Dean  Caton,  and  the  Hon.  J.  Y. 
Scammon.  Both  had  precedence  of  Went- 
worth in  point  of  early  arrival  in  Chicago, 
Caton  having  come  in  June,  1833,  '^"'^  Scammon 
in  September,  1835. 

John    Dean   Caton    was    born   in   Monroe 


^Tnttotiuction 


County,  New  York,  March  19,  1 8 12.  His 
grandfather,  who  was  once  connected  with  the 
British  Army,  settled  on  the  Potomac,  in  Vir- 
ginia, at  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  His  son 
Robert,  Judge  Caton's  father,  served  through 
the  war  on  the  American  side,  and  afterwards 
became  a  preacher  in  the  Society  of  Friends. 
John,  his  twelfth  son,  at  the  age  of  nine  began 
work  on  the  farm,  attending  the  district  school 
in  the  winter,  and  beginning  to  teach  at  the 
age  of  seventeen.  Thus  far  his  Hfe  is  not 
unlike  that  of  the  poet  Whittier,  whom  he 
somewhat  resembled  in  appearance,  and  also 
in  his  Quaker  origin. 

The  call  of  the  West  was  very  strong  in 
those  days,  and  in  1833,  after  a  short  course 
at  the  Academy  at  Utica,  and  in  the  high 
school  at  Rome,  New  York,  and  in  the  law 
office  of  Beardsley  &  Matteson,  he  started 
out  to  seek  his  fortune  in  the  wilds  of  Mich- 
igan. Chancing  to  hear  of  a  place  called  Chi- 
cago, he  came  thus  far  and  halted.  Chicago 
had  no  lawyer,  and  young  Caton  became  its 
attorney.  It  is  said  that  his  office  was  at 
that  time  anything  but  a  fixed  affair,  being 
usually  the  first  convenient  corner,  with  any 
box  or  barrel  that  stood  there,  by  way  of 
furniture. 

To  obtain  admission  to  the  bar,  John  Caton 
was  obliged  to  journey  three  hundred  miles  on 
horseback  across  the  prairie  and  through  the 
forest  to  Greenville,  near  the  Ohio  River.     In 


SFntrotiuction 


1836  he  formed  a  partnership  with  Norman  B. 
Judd,  a  former  schoolmate  and  friend.  In  1839 
he  purchased  a  farm  near  Plainfield,  built  a  log 
house,  and  for  several  years  devoted  himself  to 
farming  and  to  a  more  exhaustive  study  of  the 
law.  Meanwhile  he  was  riding  the  circuit 
as  occasion  required,  and  has  left  us  many 
amusing  tales  of  pioneer  experiences  in  his 
Early  Bench  and  Bar  of  Illinois.  In  1842, 
he  was  appointed  one  of  the  Judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  a  position  which  he 
held  until  June,  1865. 

When  Caton  came  to  Illinois,  a  single  vol- 
ume of  law  reports  existed  here — those  of 
Judge  Sidney  Breese.  When  he  left  the  bench 
he  had  added  thirty  volumes  of  invaluable 
material  to  these  legal  resources  of  Illinois. 

A  story  is  told  of  Judge  Caton  which  illus- 
trates the  primitive  conditions  in  Illinois  in 
th  forties,  though  not  the  Judge's  habitual 
frame  of  mind.  At  a  time  when  the  Supreme 
Judges  were  receiving  only  twelve  or  fifteen 
hundred  dollars  per  annum.  Judge  Caton  went 
into  a  grocery  store  one  day,  purchased  a  very 
fine  sugar-cured  ham,  and  set  it  down  by  the 
side  of  the  counter  while  he  engaged  in  a 
friendly  chat  with  the  grocer.  Meanwhile, 
a  great  shaggy  ill-favored  dog  came  in,  picked 
up  the  Judge's  ham,  and  made  off  with  it. 
The  Judge,  however,  was  not  to  be  done  out 
of  his  property  so  easily.  Overtaking  the  dog, 
he  rescued  his  ham,  administered  several  very 


g^ntrotiuction 


hearty  kicks  to  the  offender,  and  addressed  him 
in  the  following  terms : 

' '  You  miserable  cur !  You  are  the  meanest 
dog  I  ever  saw,  to  come  in  here  and  steal  this 
ham  which  has  cost  me  my  last  dollar.  Don't 
you  know  that  I  am  receiving  only  the  pitiful 
salary  of  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a 
year?  You  are  mean  enough  to  steal  the  last 
piece  of  meat  from  the  lowest  shelf  in  a  nig- 
ger's kitchen!" — with  which  terrible  charge 
and  a  few  other  unQuakerlike  remarks  which 
never  went  into  the  record,  the  Judge  walked 
off  with  his  ham,  leaving  the  culprit  to  meditate 
upon  the  power  and  dignity  of  the  Supreme 
Bench  of  Illinois. 

In  his  Early  Bar  of  Chicago  Judge  Blodgett, 
a  contemporary  of  Caton's,  wrote :  "The  time 
Judge  Caton  was  a  member  of  that  court  may 
be  called  the  formative  era  in  our  state  juris- 
prudence." Among  matters  that  came  before 
Caton  were  the  transfer  of  the  Illinois  and 
Michigan  Canal  to  the  holders  of  the  state 
bonds  for  carrying  on  the  work ;  the  land  grant 
to  the  state  for  construction  of  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad ;  the  powers  to  be  allowed  to 
railroads  in  Illinois,  as  well  as  to  other  corpora- 
tions, and  land  titles  in  the  "Military  Tract." 
Judge  Caton  was  one  of  the  first  in  the  West 
to  take  an  interest  in  telegraphy, —  backing  his 
faith  with  funds, — and  in  1857  became  the 
principal  owner  of  all  the  telegraph  fines  in 
Illinois  and  Iowa.    He  was  exceedingly  success- 


^Tntrotiutticm 


ful  in  the  management  of  these  properties, 
and,  in  1865,  transferred  them  to  The  Western 
Union  Telegraph  Company  on  such  terms  as 
made  him  financially  independent  for  life. 

From  that  time  on  he  devoted  himself  to 
travel  and  study,  and  may  be  considered  as 
one  of  the  most  perfect  types  which  the  West 
has  produced  of  the  cultured  scholar  who  is 
yet  a  practical  man  of  affairs.  Many  of  his 
scientific  studies  and  records  of  travel  were 
gathered  into  a  volume  of  Miscellanies,  and 
mark  how  far  his  thought  had  gone  in  the 
direction  of  scientific  and  political  achievement 
which  has  since  come  to  pass  in  America.  His 
death  occurred  on  July  30,  1895. 

When  Jonathan  Young  Scammon  came  upon 
the  scene  in  Chicago  there  was  no  free  school 
system  here.  In  fact,  the  newly  constituted 
city  council  had  voted  against  a  free  school 
law.  Scammon  was  a  lawyer  —  had  indeed 
preceded  Caton  by  a  few  years  as  official 
reporter  for  Illinois.  He  offered  to  draft  a 
law  for  common  schools,  and  succeeded  in  get- 
ting it  enacted  by  the  legislature  of  Illinois, 
himself  accepting  the  arduous  duties  of  in- 
spector of  schools  under  the  new  system. 

There  were  no  railroads  in  Illinois  until 
William  B.  Ogden,  J.  Y.  Scammon,  and  a  few 
others  of  their  calibre  went  personally  across 
the  prairies,  all  along  the  line  proposed  for  the 
Galena   and    Chicago    route,    persuading   the 


S^ntrotiuction 


farmers  that  a  railroad  would  help  them  in 
getting  their  crops  to  market.  The  Galena 
and  Chicago  Union  Railroad,  chartered  in 
1836,  but  not  completed  until  1848,  was  the 
result,  and  is  the  nucleus  of  the  Chicago  and 
Northwestern  system. 

There  were  no  harbor  improvements  in 
Chicago  when  Scammon  came.  His  name, 
with  those  of  John  Wentworth,  George  Man- 
ierre,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  and  Grant  Goodrich, 
was  signed  to  the  call  for  the  River  and  Harbor 
Convention  of  1 847. 

In  185 1  J.  Y.  Scammon  became  president 
and  leading  stockholder  of  The  Chicago  Marine 
and  Fire  Insurance  Company.  The  general 
banking  law  of  185 1  had  just  been  passed,  and, 
under  its  provisions,  he  established  the  Marine 
Bank,  which  was  long  considered  the  strong- 
est of  the  state  banks. 

Mr.  Scammon  came  to  be  a  very  rich  man, 
but  his  public  spirit  kept  pace  with  his  fortune. 
During  the  campaign  for  the  support  of  Lincoln, 
in  i860,  he  published,  at  his  own  cost,  much  of 
the  literature  that  helped  to  win  the  day.  The 
only  political  office  which  he  himself  held  was 
the  modest  one  of  membership  in  the  Illinois 
Legislature. 

No  Swedenborgian  church  existed  in  Illinois 
until  Scammon  came  to  Chicago,  in  1835,  and 
began  to  hold  meetings  in  his  business  office, 
which  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  that  de- 
nomination in  the  West.     Homoeopathy  was 


^Fntrobuction 


struggling  for  a  hearing  in  Illinois,  and  Scam- 
mon  built  for  this  then  despised  "school"  the 
Hahnemann  Hospital.  In  like  manner,  the 
University  of  Chicago  needed  something  to 
give  it  prestige  in  the  scientific  world,  and 
Scammon  bought  for  it  the  largest  lens  in 
the  world  at  that  time,  built  for  it  an  obser- 
vatory, and  paid  the  salary  of  the  professor  of 
astronomy. 

One  of  the  founders,  and  president,  of 
The  Chicago  Historical  Society,  he  occupied  a 
like  office  in  The  Chicago  Academy  of  Sciences 
and  in  the  Astronomical  Society.  He  had  a 
hand  in  the  founding  of  The  Chicago  Tribune 
and  The  Chicago  Journal,  and  in  1872  estab- 
lished The  Inter-Ocean  in  a  back  room  of  his 
own  residence. 

The  fire  of  1871  and  the  panic  of  1873 
swept  away  Mr.  Scammon's  fortune.  He  re- 
tired from  the  banking  business  and  resumed 
his  law  practice,  removing  from  his  handsome 
residence  in  town  to  a  gardener's  cottage  on  a 
tract  of  land  at  South  Park.  To  some  men 
this  humiliation  would  have  proved  too  much. 
But  life  to  a  man  like  Scammon  meant  more 
than  money.  His  interest  in  Chicago  was  not 
Hmited  to  his  own  advancement.  His  far- 
seeing  eyes  and  active  hands  still  continued  to 
contribute  to  the  city's  welfare.  It  is  signifi- 
cant that  he  was  one  of  the  few  chosen  to  speak 
with  Wentworth  and  Caton  at  that  memorable 
gathering  of  old  residents  in  1 879,  and  that 


S^ntrotiuction 


when  he  died  in  1890,  his  name  had  become 
synonymous  with  the  expression  "pubhc  spirit." 

At  this  distance  from  the  events  set  forth  in 
this  Uttle  volume,  we  are  enabled  to  look  back, 
and  to  see  things  in  something  like  a  true  pro- 
portion. We  have  chosen  these  few  figures 
as  typical  of  the  manners  of  men  who  consti- 
tuted the  Chicago  of  "the  early  day."  They 
differed  greatly  one  from  the  other,  but,  for- 
getting all  personal  peculiarities,  it  might  be 
said  that  Wentworth  stood  for  strength  of 
purpose,  Caton  for  justice,  and  Scammon  for 
sagacity.  Out  of  these  quahties  has  sprung  a 
city.  At  this  Christmas  season  we  shall  be 
gratified  if  this  book  of  "Reminiscences"  shall 
contribute  to  a  clearer  concept  of  that  city  and 
of  her  conquest  over  circumstance. 

Mabel  McIlvaine. 


Reminiscences  of  Early  Chicago 


€\iatW  f  enno  J^ofiEman 

[From  "A  Winter  in  the  West."] 


Chicago,  January  i,  1834. 

WE  left  the  prairie  on  the  east,  after 
passing  through  "the  door,"  and 
entered  a  forest,  where  the  enormous 
black  walnut  and  sycamore  trees  cumbered  the 
soil  with  trunks  from  which  a  comfortable 
dweUing  might  be  excavated.  The  road  was 
about  as  bad  as  could  be  imagined;  and  after 
riding  so  long  over  prairies  as  smooth  as  a  turn- 
pike, the  stumps  and  fallen  trees  over  which 
we  were  compelled  to  drive,  with  the  deep 
mud-holes  into  which  our  horses  continually 
plunged,  were  anything  but  agreeable.  Still, 
the  stupendous  vegetation  of  the  forest  inter- 
ested me  sufficiently  to  make  the  time,  other- 
wise enHvened  by  good  company,  pass  with 
sufficient  fleetness,  though  we  made  hardly 
more  than  two  miles  an  hour  throughout  the 
stage.  At  last,  after  passing  several  unten- 
anted sugar  camps  of  the  Indians,  we  reached 
a  cabin,  prettily  situated  on  the  banks  of  a 
lively  brook  winding  through  the  forest.  A 
little  Frenchman  waited  at  the  door  to  receive 
our  horses,  while  a  couple  of  half-intoxicated 
Indians  followed  us  into  the  house,  in  the  hope 
of  getting  a''netos  (vulgarly,  "a  treat")  from 
I 


fitmmi^tmct^  of  <6arlp  ^tfjicago 

the  new-comers.  The  usual  settlers'  dinner 
of  fried  bacon,  venison  cutlets,  hot  cakes,  and 
wild  honey,  with  some  tolerable  tea  and  Indian 
sugar — as  that  made  from  the  maple  tree  is 
called  at  the  West — was  soon  placed  before  us; 
while  our  new  driver,  the  frizzy  little  French- 
man already  mentioned,  harnessed  a  fresh 
team,  and  hurried  us  into  the  wagon  as  soon 
as  possible.  The  poor  little  fellow  had  thirty 
miles  to  drive  before  dark,  on  the  most  diffi- 
cult part  of  the  route  of  the  line  between 
Detroit  and  Chicago.  It  was  easy  to  see  that 
he  knew  nothing  of  driving,  the  moment  he 
took  his  reins  in  hand;  but  when  one  of  my 
fellow  travelers  mentioned  that  little  Victor 
had  been  preferred  to  his  present  situation  of  ' 
trust  from  the  indefatigable  manner  in  which, 
before  the  stage  route  was  established  last 
season,  he  had  for  years  carried  the  mail 
through  this  lonely  country — swimming  rivers 
and  sleeping  in  the  woods  at  all  seasons — it 
was  impossible  to  dash  the  mixture  of  boyish 
glee  and  official  pomposity  with  which  he  entered 
upon  his  duties,  by  suggesting  any  improvement 
as  to  the  mode  of  performing  them.  Away 
then  we  went,  helter-skelter,  through  the 
woods — scrambled  through  a  brook,  and  gal- 
loping over  an  arm  of  the  prairie,  struck  again 
into  the  forest.  A  fine  stream  called  the 
Calamine  made  our  progress  here  more  gentle 
for  a  moment.  But  immediately  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river  was  an  Indian  trading-post, 


Cljarle^  f  enno  J^offman 

and  our  little  French  Phaeton — who,  to  tell 
the  truth,  had  been  repressing  his  fire  for  the 
last  half-hour,  while  winding  among  the  decayed 
trees  and  broken  branches  of  the  forest — could 
contain  no  longer.  He  shook  the  reins  on  his 
wheel-horses,  and  cracked  up  his  leaders,  with 
an  air  that  would  have  distinguished  him  on 
the  Third  Avenue,  and  been  envied  at  Cato's. 
He  rises  in  his  seat  as  he  passes  the  trading 
house;  he  sweeps  by  like  a  whirlwind:  but  a 
female  peeps  from  the  portal,  and  it  is  all  over 
with  poor  Victor. 

"Ah,  wherefore  did  he  turn  to  look? 
That  pause,  that  fatal  gaze  he  took. 
Hath  doomed — " 

his  discomfiture.  The  infuriate  car  strikes  a 
stump,  and  the  unlucky  youth  shoots  off  at  a 
tangent,  as  if  he  were  discharged  from  a  mortar. 
The  whole  operation  was  completed  with  such 
velocity,  that  the  first  intimation  I  had  of  what 
was  going  forward,  was  on  finding  myself  two 
or  three  yards  from  the  shattered  wagon,  with 
a  tall  Indian  in  a  wolf-skin  cap  standing  over 
me.  My  two  fellow  passengers  were  dislodged 
from  their  seats  with  the  same  want  of  cere- 
mony; but  though  the  disjecta  membra  of  our 
company  were  thus  prodigally  scattered  about, 
none  of  us,  providentially,  received  injury. 
Poor  Victor  was  terribly  crestfallen ;  and  had 
he  not  unpacked  his  soul  by  calling  upon  all 
the  saints  in  the  calendar,  in  a  manner  more 
familiar  than  respectful,  I  verily  believe  that  his 

3 


Iflemmijefcence^  of  4tatl^  Cfjtcago 

tight  little  person  would  have  exploded  like 
a  torpedo.  A  very  respectable  looking  Indian 
female,  the  wife,  probably,  of  the  French  gen- 
tleman who  owned  the  post,  came  out,  and 
civilly  furnished  us  with  basins  and  towels  to 
clean  our  hands  and  faces,  which  were  sorely 
bespattered  with  mud;  while  the  gray  old  Indian 
before  mentioned  assisted  in  collecting  our 
scattered  baggage. 

The  spot  where  our  disaster  occurred  was  a 
sequestered,  wild  looking  place.  The  trading 
estabhshment  consisted  of  six  or  eight  log 
cabins,  of  a  most  primitive  construction,  all  of 
them  gray  with  age,  and  so  grouped  on  the 
bank  of  the  river  as  to  present  an  appearance 
quite  picturesque.  There  was  not  much  time, 
however,  to  be  spent  observing  its  beauties. 
The  sun  was  low,  and  we  had  twenty-five  miles 
yet  to  travel  that  night,  before  reaching  the  only 
shantee  on  the  lake  shore.  My  companions 
were  compelled  to  mount  two  of  the  stage 
horses,  while  I  once  more  put  the  saddle  on 
mine;  and  leaving  our  trunks  to  follow  a  week 
hence,  we  slung  our  saddle-bags  across  the 
cruppers,  and  pushed  directly  ahead. 

A  few  miles'  easy  riding  through  the  woods 
brought  us  to  a  dangerous  morass,  where  we 
were  compelled  to  dismount  and  drive  our 
horses  across,  one  of  the  party  going  in  advance 
to  catch  them  on  the  other  side.  A  mile  or 
two  of  pine  barrens  now  lay  between  us  and 
the    shore,  and    winding   rapidly   among   the 

4 


€fjarie^  f  enno  i^offman 

short  hills,  covered  with  this  stinted  growth, 
we  came  suddenly  upon  a  mound  of  white  sand 
at  least  fifty  feet  high.  Another  of  these  deso- 
late looking  eminences,  still  higher,  lay  beyond. 
We  topped  it;  and  there,  far  away  before  us, 
lay  the  broad  bosom  of  Lake  Michigan, — the 
red  disk  of  the  sun  just  sinking  beneath  it,  and 
the  freshening  night  breeze  beginning  to  curl  its 
limpid  waters  on  the  shore;  and  now,  having 
gained  their  verge,  whichever  way  we  turned, 
there  was  nothing  discernible  but  the  blacken- 
ing lake  on  one  side  and  these  conical  hills  of 
shifting  white  sand  on  the  other.  Some  of 
them,  as  the  night  advanced  and  objects  were 
only  discernible  by  the  bright  starlight,  assumed 
a  most  fantastic  appearance,  and  made  me 
regret  that  I  could  not  visit  the  "Sleeping 
Bear,"  and  other  singularly  formed  mounds, 
which  many  miles  further  to  the  north,  swell 
from  two  to  three  hundred  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  lake.  The  deep  sand,  into  which  our 
horses  sunk  to  the  fetlocks,  was  at  first  most 
wearisome  to  the  poor  beasts;  and  having 
twenty  miles  yet  to  travel  entirely  on  the  lake 
shore,  we  were  compelled,  in  spite  of  the  danger 
of  quicksands,  to  move  as  near  the  water  as 
possible.  But  though  the  day  had  been  mild, 
the  night  rapidly  became  so  cold  that,  before 
we  had  proceeded  thus  many  miles,  the  beach 
twenty  yards  from  the  surf  was  nearly  as  hard 
as  stone,  and  the  finest  Macadamized  road  in 
the  world  could  not  compare  with  the  one  over 

5 


lltmiim^cciice^  of  oBarip  €l)ica0o 

which  we  now  galloped.  Nor  did  we  want 
lamps  to  guide  us  on  our  way.  Above,  the 
stars  stood  out  like  points  of  light;  while  the 
resplendent  fires  of  the  Aurora  Borealis,  shoot- 
ing along  the  heavens  on  our  right,  were  mocked 
by  the  livid  glare  of  the  Kankakee  marshes, 
burning  behind  the  sand  hills  on  our  left.  The 
lake  alone  looked  dark  and  lowering;  though 
even  its  gathering  waves  would  smile  when 
touched  with  light  as  they  broke  upon  the 
shore.  The  intense  cold  seemed  to  invigorate 
our  horses;  and  dashing  the  fire  from  the 
occasional  pebbles,  they  clattered  along  the 
frozen  beach  at  a  rate  that  brought  us  rapidly 
to  our  destination  for  the  night. 

It  was  a  rude  cabin,  built  of  stems  of  the 
scrub  pine,  standing  behind  a  sandy  swell 
about  two  hundred  yards  from  the  shore.  My 
fingers  were  numb  with  cold;  and  seeing  a 
rough-looking  fellow  moving  from  the  door 
towards  the  horses  of  my  companions,  I 
requested  him  to  take  mine  also;  but,  upon 
his  politely  rejoining  that  "he  was  nobody's 
servant  but  his  own,"  I  could  only  wish  him 
"a  more  civil  master,"  and  proceeded  to  take 
care  of  the  animal  myself.  A  brake  of  stunted 
evergreens  near  by  supplied  the  place  of  a  stable; 
and  passing  a  wisp  of  dry  grass  over  the  reeking 
limbs  of  my  four-footed  friend,  I  flung  my  cloak 
over  his  back,  and  tethered  him  for  the  night. 
The  keeper  of  the  rustic  hostelrie  came  up  just 
as  I  had  got  through  with  this  necessary  task, 
6 


and  explaining  to  me  that  the  insolent  lounger 
was  a  discharged  mail  carrier,  returned  with 
me  to  the  house  for  a  measure  of  corn;  while 
I,  guided  by  the  light  flickering  through  the 
crevices  of  his  frail  dwelling,  rejoined  my  com- 
panions nestled  with  two  other  half-frozen 
travelers  around  the  grateful  fire  within.  The 
strangers  were  both  western  men;  one,  I 
beUeve,  a  farmer,  for  some  time  settled  in 
Illinois,  and  the  other  an  Indian  trader  of  long 
standing  in  Chicago.  War-like  incidents  in 
border  story,  and  the  pacific  dealings  between 
the  whites  and  Indians,  formed  the  chief  sub- 
jects of  conversation,  which  soon  became  gen- 
eral, and  was  prolonged  to  a  late  hour;  finally 
the  late  treaty  held  at  Chicago — at  which,  as 
you  have  probably  seen  in  the  newspapers, 
several  thousand  Indians  were  present — was 
discussed,  and  the  anecdotes  that  were  told  of 
meanness,  rapacity,  and  highway  robbery  (in 
cheating,  stealing,  and  forcibly  taking  away) 
from  the  Indians,  exasperated  me  so  that  I 
expressed  my  indignation  and  disgust  in  un- 
measured terms.  The  worthy  trader,  who 
was  a  middle-aged  man,  of  affable,  quiet  good 
manners,  seemed  to  sympathize  with  me 
throughout;  but  the  whole  current  of  my  feel- 
ings was  totally  changed,  when,  upon  my 
observing  shortly  afterward  to  another  gentle- 
man, that  'T  should  have  liked  to  have  been 
at  Chicago  a  year  ago,"  my  warm  coadjutor 
ejaculated  from  under  the  bed-clothes,  where 

7 


Mtmim^temt^  of  <!^arip  Cljicago 

he  had  in  the  meantime  bestowed  himself, 
"Ah,  sir,  if  you  had,  the  way  in  which  you'd 
have  hook'd  an  Indian  blanket  by  this  time, 
would  be  curious."  The  chivalric  Knight  of 
La  Mancha  himself  could  not  have  sustained 
heroics  under  such  a  home  thrust,  but  must 
have  burst  into  the  hearty  laugh  in  which  I  was 
joined  by  all  present.  The  hour  of  sleep  for 
all  at  last  arrived,  and  a  couple  of  wooden 
bunks,  swung  from  the  roof,  falling  to  the  lot 
of  those  who  had  come  in  first,  I  wrapped 
myself  in  a  buffalo-skin,  and  placing  my  saddle 
under  my  head  for  a  pillow,  soon  "slept  like 
a  king,"  a  term  which,  if 

"Uneasy  lies  the  head  that  wears  a  crown" 

be  true  doctrine,  is,  probably,  quasi  lucus,  &c. 
Our  transient  acquaintances  parted  from  us 
in  a  most  friendly  manner  in  the  morning;  and 
after  waiting  in  vain  till  near  noon,  to  see  if  by 
any  chance  little  Victor  might  not  be  able  to 
forward  our  trunks  to  this  point,  we  mounted 
once  more,  and  pushed  ahead  with  all  speed, 
to  accomplish  the  remaining  twenty  or  thirty 
miles  between  the  shantee  and  Chicago.  Our 
route  was  still  along  the  shore;  and  after  pass- 
ing round  the  end  of  the  lake  and  taking  a 
northwardly  direction,  the  way  in  which  the  icy 
blast  would  come  down  the  bleak  shore  of  the 
lake  "was  a  caution,"  We  galloped  at  full 
speed,  every  man  choosing  his  own  route  along 
the  beach,  our  horses'  hoofs  ringing  the  while 
8 


as  if  it  were  a  pavement  of  flint  beneath  them. 
The  rough  ice  piled  up  on  the  coast  prevented 
us  from  watering  our  beasts;  and  we  did  not 
draw  a  rein  till  the  rushing  current  of  the 
Calamine,  which  debouches  into  Lake  Michi- 
gan some  ten  miles  from  Chicago,  stayed  our 
course.  A  cabin  on  the  bank  gave  us  a  mo- 
ment's opportunity  to  warm,  and  then,  being 
ferried  over  the  wintry  stream,  we  started  with 
fresh  vigor,  and  crossing  about  a  mile  of 
prairie  in  the  neighborhood  of  Chicago,  reached 
here  in  time  for  an  early  dinner.  Our  horses 
this  morning  seem  none  the  worse  for  this  furi- 
ous riding;  their  escape  from  ill  consequences 
being  readily  attributable  to  the  excellence  of 
the  road,  and  the  extreme  coldness  of  the 
weather  while  traveling  it.  For  my  own  part, 
I  never  felt  better  than  after  this  violent  burst 
of  exercise. 

We  had  not  been  here  an  hour  before  an  in- 
vitation to  a  public  ball  was  courteously  sent 
to  us  by  the  managers;  and  though  my  soiled 
and  travel-worn  riding  dress  was  not  exactly 
the  thing  to  present  one's  self  in  before  ladies 
of  an  evening,  yet,  in  my  earnestness  to  see 
life  on  the  frontier,  I  easily  allowed  all  objec- 
tions to  be  overruled  by  my  companions,  and 
we  accordingly  drove  to  the  house  in  which  the 
ball  was  given.  It  was  a  frame  building,  one 
of  the  few  as  yet  to  be  found  in  Chicago;  which, 
although  one  of  the  most  ancient  French 
trading  posts  on  the  Lakes,  can  only  date  its 

9 


^flemini^cmceiEf  of  <!Barip  CJjicago 

growth  as  a  village  since  the  Indian  war  eighteen 
months  since.  When  I  add  that  the  popula- 
tion has  quintupled  last  summer,  and  that  but 
few  mechanics  have  come  in  with  the  prodi- 
gious increase  of  residents,  you  can  readily 
imagine  that  the  influx  of  strangers  far  exceeds 
the  means  of  accommodation;  while  scarcely 
a  house  in  the  place,  however  comfortable 
looking  outside,  contains  more  than  two  or  three 
finished  rooms.  In  the  present  instance,  we 
were  ushered  into  a  tolerably  sized  dancing 
room,  occupying  the  second  story  of  the  house, 
and  having  its  unfinished  walls  so  ingeniously 
covered  with  pine  branches  and  flags  borrowed 
from  the  garrison,  that,  with  the  whitewashed 
ceiling  above,  it  presented  a  very  complete  and 
quite  pretty  appearance.  It  was  not  so  warm, 
however,  that  the  fires  of  cheerful  hickory, 
which  roared  at  either  end,  could  have  been 
readily  dispensed  with.  An  orchestra  of  un- 
planed  boards  was  raised  against  the  wall  in 
the  center  of  the  room;  the  band  consisting  of 
a  dandy  negro  with  his  violin,  a  fine  military 
looking  bass  drummer  from  the  fort,  and  a  vol- 
unteer citizen,  who  alternately  played  an 
accompaniment  upon  the  flute  and  triangle. 
Blackee,  who  flourished  about  with  a  great 
many  airs  and  graces,  was  decidedly  the  king 
of  the  company;  and  it  was  amusing,  while 
his  head  followed  the  direction  of  his  fiddle- 
bow  with  pertinacious  fidelity,  to  see  the  Cap- 
tain   Manual-like    precision   with   which    the 

10 


Cljaric^  f  enno  J^offtnan 

soldier  dressed  to  the  front  on  one  side,  and  the 
nonchalant  air  of  importance  which  the  cit 
attempted  to  preserve  on  the  other. 

As  for  the  company,  it  was  such  a  complete 
medley  of  all  ranks,  ages,  professions,  trades, 
and  occupations,  brought  together  from  all 
parts  of  the  world,  and  now  for  the  first  time 
brought  together,  that  it  was  amazing  to  wit- 
ness the  decorum  with  which  they  commingled 
on  this  festive  occasion.  The  managers  (among 
whom  were  some  officers  of  the  garrison)  must 
certainly  be  au  fait  at  dressing  a  lobster  and 
mixing  regent's  punch,  in  order  to  have  pro- 
duced a  harmonious  compound  from  such  a 
collection  of  contrarieties.  The  gayest  figure 
that  was  ever  called  by  quadrille-playing 
Benoit  never  afforded  me  half  the  amusement 
that  did  these  Chicago  cotillons.  Here  you 
might  see  a  veteran  officer  in  full  uniform  bal- 
ancing to  a  tradesman's  daughter  still  in  her 
short  frock  and  trowsers,  while  there  the  golden 
aiguillette  of  a  handsome  surgeon  flapped  in 
unison  with  the  glass  beads  upon  a  scrawny 
neck  of  fifty.  In  one  quarter,  the  high-placed 
buttons  of  a  linsey-woolsey  coat  would  be  dos 
a  dos  to  the  elegantly  turned  shoulders  of  a  deli- 
cate looking  southern  girl;  and  in  another,  a 
pair  of  Cinderella-like  slippers  would  chassez 
cross  with  a  brace  of  thick-soled  broghans,  in 
making  which,  one  of  the  lost  feet  of  the 
Colossus  of  Rhodes  may  have  served  for  a  last. 
Those  raven  locks,  dressed  d.  la  Madonne,  over 
II 


lUemim^cence^  of  €arip  €l&icago 

eyes  of  jet,  and  touching  a  cheek  where  blood 
of  a  deeper  hue  mingles  with  the  less  glowing 
current  from  European  veins,  tell  of  a  lineage 
drawn  from  the  original  owners  of  the  soil; 
while  these  golden  tresses,  floating  away  from 
eyes  of  heaven's  own  color  over  a  neck  of 
alabaster,  recall  the  Gothic  ancestry  of  some  of 
"England's  born."  How  piquantly  do  these 
trim  and  beaded  leggins  peep  from  under  that 
simple  dress  of  black,  as  its  tall  nut-brown 
wearer  moves  as  if  unconsciously  through  the 
graceful  mazes  of  the  dance.  How  diverting- 
ly  do  those  inflated  gigots,  rising  like  windsails 
from  that  little  Dutch-built  hull,  jar  against 
those  tall  plumes  which  impend  over  them  like 
a  commodore's  pennant  on  the  same  vessel. 

But  what  boots  all  these  incongruities,  when 
a  spirit  of  festive  good  humor  animates  every 
one  present?  "It  takes  all  kinds  of  people  to 
make  a  world,"  (as  I  hear  it  judiciously  ob- 
served this  side  of  the  mountains,)  and  why 
should  not  all  these  kinds  of  people  be  repre- 
sented as  well  in  a  ball-room  as  in  a  legislature? 
At  all  events,  if  I  wished  to  give  an  intelligent 
foreigner  a  favorable  opinion  of  the  manners 
and  deportment  of  my  countrymen  in  the 
aggregate,  I  should  not  wish  a  better  oppor- 
tunity, after  explaining  to  him  the  materials  of 
which  it  was  composed,  and  the  mode  in  which 
they  were  brought  together  from  every  section 
of  the  union,  than  was  afforded  by  this  very 
ball.     "This  is  a  scene  of  enchantment  to  me, 

12 


sir,"  observed  an  officer  to  me,  recently  ex- 
changed to  this  post,  and  formerly  stationed 
here.  "There  were  but  a  few  traders  around 
the  fort  when  I  last  visited  Chicago;  and  now 
I  can't  contrive  where  the  devil  all  these  well 
dressed  people  have  come  from!"  I  referred 
him  to  an  old  resident  of  three  months  stand- 
ing, to  whom  I  had  just  been  introduced,  but 
he  could  throw  no  light  upon  the  subject;  and 
we  left  the  matter  of  peopling  Chicago  in  the 
same  place  where  philosophers  have  put  the 
question  of  the  original  peopling  of  the  conti- 
nent. I  made  several  new  acquaintances  at 
this  new-year's  ball,  and  particularly  with  the 
officers  of  the  garrison,  from  whose  society  I 
promise  myself  much  pleasure  during  my  stay. 
The  geographical  position  of  Chicago  is  so 
important,  that  I  must  give  you  a  more  minute 
description  of  the  place  in  my  next.  Would 
that  in  folding  this  I  could  enclose  you  half 
the  warm  wishes  for  your  welfare  which  the 
season  awakens  in  my  bosom ! 


Chicago,  Illinois,  January  lo,  1834. 
I  have  been  here  more  than  ten  days,  with- 
out fulfilling  the  promise  given  in  my  last.  It 
has  been  so  cold,  indeed,  as  almost  to  render 
writing  impracticable  in  a  place  so  comfort- 
less. The  houses  were  built  with  such  rapidity, 
during  the  summer,  as  to  be  mere  shells;  and 
the  thermometer  having  ranged  as  low  as  28 

13 


Iflemmi^cence^  of  €arip  Cfjicago 

below  zero,  during  several  days  it  has  been 
almost  impossible,  notwithstanding  the  large 
fires  kept  up  by  an  attentive  landlord,  to  pre- 
vent the  ink  from  freezing  while  using  it,  and 
one's  fingers  become  so  numb  in  a  very  few 
moments  when  thus  exercised,  that,  after  vainly 
trying  to  write  in  gloves,  I  have  thrown  by  my 
pen,  and  joined  the  group,  composed  of  all  the 
household,  around  the  barroom  fire.  This 
room,  which  is  an  old  log  cabin  aside  of  the 
main  house,  is  one  of  the  most  comfortable 
places  in  town,  and  is,  of  course,  much  fre- 
quented; business  being,  so  far  as  one  can 
judge  from  the  concourse  that  throng  it,  nearly 
at  a  standstill.  Several  persons  have  been 
severely  frost-bitten  in  passing  from  door  to 
door;  and  not  to  mention  the  quantity  of  poul- 
try and  pigs  that  have  been  frozen,  an  ox,  I 
am  told,  has  perished  from  cold  in  the  streets 
at  noonday.  An  occasional  Indian,  wrapped 
in  his  blanket,  and  dodging  about  from  store  to 
store  after  a  dram  of  whiskey,  or  a  muffled- 
up  Frenchman,  driving  furiously  in  his  cariole 
on  the  river,  are  almost  the  only  human  beings 
abroad;  while  the  wolves,  driven  in  by  the 
deep  snows  which  preceded  this  severe  weather, 
troop  through  the  town  after  nightfall,  and 
may  be  heard  howling  continually  in  the  midst 
of  it. 

The  situation  of  Chicago,  on  the  edge  of  the 
Grand  Prairie,  with  the  whole  expanse  of  Lake 
Michigan  before  it,  gives  the  freezing  winds 

14 


from  the  Rocky  Mountains  prodigious  effect, 
and  renders  a  degree  of  temperature  which  in 
sheltered  situations  is  but  little  felt,  almost 
painful  here. 

"The  bleak  winds 
Do  sorely  ruffle;  for  many  a  mile  about, 
There's  scarce  a  bush." 

The  town  lies  upon  a  dead  level,  along  the 
banks  of  a  narrow  forked  river,  and  is  spread 
over  a  wide  extent  of  surface  to  the  shores  of 
the  lake,  while  vessels  of  considerable  draught 
of  water  can,  by  means  of  the  river,  unload  in 
the  centre  of  the  place.  I  believe  I  have 
already  mentioned  that  four  fifths  of  the  popu- 
lation have  come  in  since  last  spring:  the 
erection  of  new  buildings  during  the  summer 
has  been  in  the  same  proportion ;  and  although 
a  place  of  such  mushroom  growth  can,  of  course, 
boast  of  but  little  solid  improvement  in  the 
way  of  building,  yet  contracts  have  been  made 
for  the  ensuing  season  which  must  soon  give 
Chicago  much  of  that  metropolitan  appearance 
it  is  destined  so  promptly  to  assume.  As  a 
place  of  business,  its  situation  at  the  central 
head  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  will  make  it  the 
New  Orleans  of  the  North;  and  its  easy  and 
close  intercourse  with  the  most  flourishing 
eastern  cities  will  give  it  the  advantage,  as  its 
capital  increases,  of  all  their  improvements  in 
the  mode  of  living. 

There  is  one  improvement  to  be  made,  how- 
ever, in  this  section  of  the  country,  which  will 

15 


^Hemmi^cence^f  of  <6arip  Cfjicago 

greatly  influence  the  permanent  value  of  prop- 
erty in  Chicago.  I  allude  to  a  canal  from  the 
head  of  Lake  Michigan  to  the  head  of  steam 
navigation  on  the  Illinois,  the  route  of  which 
has  been  long  since  surveyed.  The  distance 
to  be  overcome  is  something  like  ninety  miles; 
and  when  you  remember  that  the  headwaters 
of  the  Illinois  rise  within  eleven  miles  of 
Chicago  River,  and  that  a  level  plain  of  not 
more  than  eight  feet  elevation  above  the  latter 
is  the  only  Intervening  obstacle,  you  can  con- 
ceive how  easy  it  would  be  to  drain  Lake 
Michigan  into  the  Mississippi  by  this  route; 
boats  of  eighteen  tons  having  actually  passed 
over  the  intervening  prairie  at  high  water.  Lake 
Michigan,  which  is  several  feet  or  more  above 
Lake  Erie,  would  afford  such  a  never-failing 
body  of  water  that  it  would  keep  steamboats 
afloat  on  the  route  in  the  dryest  season.  St. 
Louis  would  then  be  brought  comparatively 
near  to  New  York,  while  two  thirds  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  would  be  supplied  by  this 
route  immediately  from  the  markets  of  the 
latter.  This  canal  is  the  only  remaining  link 
wanting  to  complete  the  most  stupendous  chain 
of  inland  communication  in  the  world.  I  had 
a  long  conversation  this  morning,  on  the  sub- 
ject, with  Major  H.,the  United  States  engineer, 
who  is  engaged  in  superintending  the  construc- 
tion of  a  pier  at  this  place.  He  was  polite 
enough  to  sketch  the  main  features  of  the  route 
with  his  pencil,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make 
I6 


its  feasibility  very  apparent.  The  canal  would 
pass  for  the  whole  distance  through  a  prairie 
country,  where  every  production  of  the  field 
and  the  garden  can  be  raised  with  scarcely  any 
toil,  and  where  the  most  prolific  soil  in  the 
world  requires  no  other  preparation  for  planting 
than  passing  the  plough  over  its  bosom.  The 
most  effectual  mode  of  making  this  canal  would 
be  to  give  the  lands  along  its  banks  to  an 
incorporated  company,  who  should  construct 
the  work  within  a  certain  time.  The  matter 
is  now  merely  agitated  at  elections  as  a  polit- 
ical handle. 

January  13. 
I  had  got  thus  far  in  a  letter  to  you,  when 
several  officers  of  the  garrison,  to  whom  I  am 
indebted  for  much  hospitable  attention  and 
many  agreeable  hours,  stopped  opposite  the 
door  with  a  train  of  carioles,  in  one  of  which  I 
was  offered  a  seat,  to  witness  a  pacing-match  on 
the  ice.  There  were  several  ladies  with  gentle- 
men in  attendance  already  on  the  river,  all 
muffled  up,  after  the  Canadian  fashion,  in  fur 
robes,  whose  gay  trimmings  presented  a  rich 
as  well  as  most  comfortable  appearance.  The 
horses  from  which  the  most  sport  was  expected 
were  a  black  pony  bred  in  the  country  and  a 
tall  roan  nag  from  the  lower  Mississippi.  They 
paced  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  in  something  less 
than  three  minutes.  I  rode  behind  the  winning 
horse  one  heat,  and  the  velocity  with  which  he 
made  our  cariole  fly  over  the  smooth  ice  was 
17 


Memrni^tmtt^  of  €arip  CJicago 

almost  startling.  The  Southern  horse  won  the 
race;  but  I  was  told  that  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,  the  nags  from  his  part  of  the  country 
could  not  stand  against  a  French  pony. 

In  the  middle  of  the  chase,  a  wolf,  probably 
roused  by  the  sleigh-bells  from  his  lair  on  the 
river's  bank,  trotted  along  the  prairie  above, 
within  gunshot,  calmly  surveying  the  sport. 
The  uninvited  presence  of  this  long-haired 
amateur  at  once  suggested  a  hunt  for  the 
morrow,  and  arrangements  were  accordingly 
made,  by  the  several  gentlemen  present,  for 
the  most  exciting  of  sports,  a  wolf-chase  on 
horseback. 

I  was  not  present  at  the  assembling  of  the 
hunt;  and  the  first  intimation  I  had  of  the  game 
being  afoot  was  from  hearing  the  cry  of  hounds 
and  the  shouting  of  a  party  of  horsemen,  as 
they  clattered  along  the  frozen  river,  with  two 
prairie  wolves  and  one  gray  wolf  running  at 
full  speed,  about  a  pistol-shot  ahead  of  them. 
One  wolf  was  killed,  and  another  had  made 
his  escape  before  I  joined  the  party.  But  the 
third,  the  gray  wolf,  which  had  struck  off  into 
the  prairie,  was  still  fresh  when  I  came  into 
the  hunt  with  an  untired  horse.  But  one  of 
the  hunters  had  been  able  to  keep  up  with  him, 
and  him  I  could  distinguish  a  mile  off  in  the 
prairie,  turning  and  winding  his  foaming  horse 
as  the  wolf  would  double  every  moment  upon 
his  tracks,  while  half-a-dozen  dogs,  embarrassed 
in  the  deep  snow,  were  slowly  coming  up.  I 
i8 


reached  the  spot  just  as  the  wolf  first  stood  at 
bay.  His  bristling  back,  glaring  eyes,  and 
ferociously  distended  jaws  might  have  appalled 
the  dogs  for  a  moment,  when  an  impetuous 
greyhound,  who  had  been  for  some  time  push- 
ing through  the  snowdrifts  with  unabated 
industry,  having  now  attained  a  comparatively 
clear  spot  of  ground,  leaped  with  such  force 
against  the  flank  of  the  wolf  as  to  upset  him  in 
an  instant,  while  the  greyhound  shot  far  ahead 
of  the  quarry.  He  recovered  himself  instantly, 
but  not  before  a  fierce,  powerful  hound,  whose 
thick  neck  and  broad  muzzle  indicated  a  cross 
of  the  bulldog  blood  with  that  of  a  nobler 
strain,  had  struck  him  first  upon  the  haunch, 
and  was  now  trying  to  grapple  him  by  the 
throat.  Down  again  he  went,  rolling  over  and 
over  in  the  deep  snow,  while  the  clicking  of 
his  jaws,  as  he  snapped  eagerly  at  each  mem- 
ber of  the  pack  that  by  turns  beset  him,  was 
distinctly  audible.  The  powerful  dog  already 
mentioned  secured  him  at  last,  by  fixing  his 
muzzle  deeply  into  the  breast  of  the  prostrate 
animal.  This,  however,  did  not  prevent  the 
wolf  giving  some  fearful  wounds  to  the  other 
dogs  which  beset  him;  and,  accordingly,  with 
the  permission  of  the  gentleman  who  had  led 
the  chase,  I  threw  myself  from  my  horse  and 
gave  the  game  the  cotip  de  grace  with  a  dirk- 
knife  which  I  carried  about  me.  The  success 
of  this  hunt  induced  us,  upon  the  spot,  to 
appoint  another  for  this  day. 

19 


JHemitti^cence^  of  €arip  Chicago 

It  was  a  fine  bracing  morning,  with  the  sun 
shining  cheerily  through  the  still  cold  atmos- 
phere far  over  the  snow-covered  prairie,  when 
the  party  assembled  in  front  of  my  lodgings,  to 
the  number  of  ten  horsemen,  all  well  mounted 
and  eager  for  the  sport.  The  hunt  was  divided 
into  two  squads,  one  of  which  was  to  follow  the 
windings  of  the  river  on  the  ice,  and  the  other 
to  make  a  circuit  on  the  prairie.  A  pack  of 
dogs,  consisting  of  a  greyhound  or  two  for 
running  game,  with  several  of  a  heavier  and 
fiercer  breed  for  pulling  it  down,  accompanied 
each  party.  I  was  attached  to  that  which  took 
the  river:  and  it  was  a  beautiful  sight,  as  our 
friends  trotted  off  in  the  prairie,  to  see  their 
different  colored  capotes  and  gayly  equipped 
horses  contrasted  with  the  bright  carpet  of 
spotless  white  over  which  they  rode,  while  the 
sound  of  their  voices  was  soon  lost  to  our  ears, 
as  we  descended  to  the  channel  of  the  river, 
and  their  lessening  figures  were  hid  from  our 
view  by  the  low  brush  which  in  some  places 
skirted  its  banks.  The  brisk  trot  in  which  we 
now  broke,  brought  us  rapidly  to  the  place  of 
meeting,  where,  to  the  disappointment  of  each 
party,  it  was  found  that  neither  had  started  any 
game.  We  now  spread  ourselves  into  a  broad 
line,  about  gunshot  apart  from  each  other,  and 
began  thus  advancing  into  the  prairie.  We  had 
not  swept  it  thus  more  than  a  mile,  when  a 
shout  on  the  extreme  left,  with  the  accelerated 
pace  of  the  two  furthermost  riders  in  that  direc- 

20 


tion,  told  that  they  had  roused  a  wolf.  "The 
devil  take  the  hindermost"  was  now  the  motto 
of  the  company,  and  each  one  spurred  for 
the  spot  with  all  eagerness.  Unhappily,  how- 
ever, the  land  along  the  bank  of  the  river,  on  the 
right,  was  so  broken  by  ravines,  choked  up  with 
snow,  that  it  was  impossible  for  us,  who  were 
half  a  mile  from  the  game  when  started,  to  come 
up  at  all  with  two  or  three  horsemen  who  led 
the  pursuit.  Our  horses  sunk  to  their  cruppers 
in  the  deep  snowdrift.  Some  were  repeatedly 
thrown:  and  one  or  two,  breaking  their  saddle- 
girths,  from  the  desperate  struggles  their 
horses  made  in  the  snowbanks,  were  compelled 
to  abandon  the  chase  entirely.  My  stout  roan 
carried  me  bravely  through  all;  but  when  I 
emerged  from  the  last  ravine  on  the  open  plain, 
the  two  horsemen  who  led  the  chase,  from 
some  inequality  in  the  surface  of  the  prairie, 
were  not  visible;  while  the  third,  a  fleet  rider, 
whose  tall  figure  and  Indian  headdress  had 
hitherto  guided  me,  had  been  just  unhorsed, 
and  abandoning  the  game  afoot,  was  now 
wheeling  off  apparently  with  some  other  object 
in  view.  Following  on  the  same  course,  we 
soon  encountered  a  couple  of  officers  in  a 
train,  who  were  just  coming  from  a  mission 
of  charity  in  visiting  the  half-starved  orphans 
of  a  poor  woman  who  was  frozen  to  death  on 
the  prairie  a  day  or  two  since — the  wolves 
having  already  picked  her  bones  before  her 
fate  became  known.     One  by  one,  our  whole 

21 


Mtmim^tcntt^  of  €arJp  Cl^icago 

party  collected  around  to  make  inquiries  about 
the  poor  children,  and  the  two  fortunate  hun- 
ters soon  after  joined  us,  one  of  them  with 
a  large  prairie  wolf  hanging  to  the  saddle- 
bow. 

It  was  now  about  eleven  o'clock;  we  were 
only  twelve  miles  from  Chicago;  and  though 
we  had  kept  up  a  pretty  round  pace,  consider- 
ing the  depth  of  the  snow,  in  coursing  back- 
ward and  forward  since  eight,  our  horses 
generally  were  yet  in  good  condition,  and  we 
scattered  once  more  over  the  prairie,  with  the 
hope  of  rousing  more  game. 

Not  ten  minutes  elapsed  before  a  wolf, 
breaking  from  the  dead  weeds  which,  shooting 
eight  or  ten  feet  above  the  level  of  the  snow, 
indicated  the  banks  of  a  deep  ravine,  dashed 
off  into  the  prairie  pursued  by  a  horseman  on 
the  right.  He  made  instantly  for  the  deep 
banks  of  the  river,  one  of  whose  windings  was 
within  a  few  hundred  yards.  He  had  a  bold 
rider  behind  him,  however,  in  the  gentleman 
who  led  the  chase  (a  young  educated  half-blood, 
of  prepossessing  manners,  and  well  connected 
at  Chicago).  The  precipitous  bank  of  the 
stream  did  not  retard  this  hunter  for  a  moment, 
but  dashing  down  to  the  bed  of  the  river,  he 
was  hard  upon  the  wolf  before  he  could  ascend 
the  elevation  on  the  opposite  side.  Four  of 
us  only  reached  the  open  prairie  beyond  in 
time  to  take  part  in  the  chase.  Nothing  could 
be  more  beautiful.     There  was  not  an  obstacle 

22 


to  oppose  us  in  the  open  plain;  and  all  our 
dogs  having  long  since  given  out,  nothing  re- 
mained but  to  drive  the  wolf  to  death  on  horse- 
back. Away,  then,  we  went,  shouting  on  his 
track;  the  hotly  pursued  beast  gaining  on  us 
whenever  the  crust  of  deep  snowdrift  gave  him 
an  advantage  over  the  horse,  and  we  in  our 
turn  nearly  riding  over  him  when  we  came  to 
ground  comparatively  bare.  The  sagacious 
animal  became  at  last  aware  that  his  course 
would  soon  be  up  at  this  rate,  and,  turning 
rapidly  in  his  tracks  as  we  were  scattered  over 
the  prairie,  he  passed  through  our  line  and 
made  at  once  again  for  the  river.  He  was  cut 
off,  and  turned  in  a  moment  by  a  horseman 
on  the  left,  who  happened  to  be  a  little  behind 
the  rest;  and  now  came  the  keenest  part  of  the 
sport.  The  wolf  would  double  every  moment 
upon  his  tracks,  while  each  horseman  in  suc- 
cession would  make  a  dash  at,  and  turn  him  in 
a  different  direction.  Twice  I  was  near  enough 
to  strike  him  with  a  horsewhip,  and  once  he 
was  under  my  horse's  feet;  while  so  furiously 
did  each  rider  push  at  him,  that  as  we  brushed 
by  each  other  and  confronted  horse  to  horse, 
while  riding  from  different  quarters  at  full  speed, 
it  required  one  somewhat  used  "to  turn  and 
wind  a  fiery  Pegasus"  to  maintain  his  seat  at 
all.  The  rascal,  who  would  now  and  then  look 
over  his  shoulder  and  gnash  his  teeth,  seemed 
at  last  as  if  he  was  about  to  succumb — when, 
after  running  a  few  hundred  yards  in  an  oblique 
23 


^UrnimijEfcente^  of  <!Barlp  Chicago 

direction  from  the  river,  he  suddenly  veered 
his  course,  at  a  moment  when  everyone  thought 
his  strength  was  spent;  and,  gaining  the  bank 
before  he  could  be  turned,  he  disappeared  in 
an  instant.  The  rider  nearest  his  heels  became 
entangled  in  the  low  boughs  of  a  tree  which 
grew  near  the  spot;  while  I,  who  followed 
next,  was  thrown  out  sufficiently  to  give  the 
wolf  time  to  get  out  of  view,  by  my  horse  bolt- 
ing as  he  reached  the  sudden  edge  of  the  river. 
The  rest  of  the  hunt  were  consequently  at  fault 
when  they  came  up  to  us;  and  after  trying  in 
vain  to  track  our  lost  quarry  over  the  smooth 
ice  for  half  an  hour,  we  were  most  vexatiously 
compelled  to  abandon  the  pursuit  as  fruitless, 
and  return  to  the  village  with  only  one  scalp  as 
the  reward  of  our  morning's  labor. 

It  was  with  no  enviable  feelings,  I  assure 
you,  that,  on  making  my  arrangements,  an  hour 
ago,  to  start  in  the  new  line  of  stage-coaches 
which  has  just  been  estabhshed  between  this 
point  and  St.  Louis,  I  found  myself  compelled 
to  part  with  the  friend  to  whom  I  was  chiefly 
indebted  for  my  share  in  the  glorious  sports  I 
have  just  attempted  to  describe  to  you — the 
four-footed  companion  of  my  last  six  weeks' 
rambles.  I  remember  being  once  struck  with 
the  remark  of  an  ingenious  writer,  in  the 
Library  of  Useful  Knowledge,  when,  in  dis- 
cussing the  real  and  relative  value  of  horses,  he 
observes  that  the  commonest  hackney,  if  in 
every  respect  suiting  his  owner,  is  priceless 
24 


€t^atlt0  f  enno  Jpoffman 

to  the  possessor.  A  favorite  horse,  in  fact, 
though  his  estimation  may  only  depend  upon  the 
whim  of  his  master,  is  one  of  this  world's  goods 
which  can  never  be  thoroughly  replaced.  It  is 
not,  however,  when  the  charge  of  such  property 
falls  exclusively  to  grooms  and  others,  from 
one  end  of  the  year  to  another,  that  you  feel 
its  value.  The  stall-fed  palfrey,  which  you 
drive  along  a  turnpike  from  one  hotel  to  another, 
and  abandon  when  he  falls  sick  for  some 
other  means  of  conveyance,  with  as  little  con- 
cern as  you  would  exchange  your  trunk  for  a 
portmanteau,  or  vice  versa,  has  but  little  hold 
on  one's  feelings  in  comparison  with  the  hearty 
animal  with  which  you  wander  away,  where  he 
meets  with  no  care  but  such  as  you  bestow 
upon  him;  and  when  you  in  turn  become  wholly 
dependent  upon  him  for  overcoming  distances 
and  difficulties  between  places  so  remote  from 
each  other,  that  not  only  your  comfort,  but 
sometimes  your  personal  safety,  depend  upon 
accomplishing  the  intervals  within  certain  pe- 
riods—  when  you  push  ahead  through  falling 
sleet,  ford  rivers,  plunge  through  snowbanks, 
or  cross  morasses,  where  the  matted  grass, 
spreading  its  carpet  over  the  shaking  slough, 
embarrasses  and  wearies  the  step  of  your  saga- 
cious quadruped,  while  it  prevents  his  feet  from 
sinking  into  the  dangerous  quagmire  beneath. 
Three  weeks  of  such  intercourse  between  man 
and  brute  are  like  three  rainy  days  when  one 
is  shut  up  in  a  country  house  with  strangers. 

25 


Idcmmi^cmce^  of  €arip  C[)ica0O 

They  cherish  a  fellowship  more  cordial  than 
years  of  ordinary  intercourse  could  engender. 
It  is  no  little  consolation  to  me  that  I  leave  my 
Bucephalus  in  excellent  hands;  nor  does  this 
necessary  separation  so  engross  my  sympathies 
that  I  have  none  to  spare  for  other  partings. 
Upon  these,  however,  I  shall  not  dilate  here, 
though  you  must  not  be  surprised  to  find  me 
returning  more  than  once  hereafter  to  charac- 
ters, scenes,  and  incidents  at  Chicago  which  I 
have  hitherto  left  untouched. 


26 


J^arrtet  piavtiman 

[From  "  Society  in  America."] 


CHICAGO  looks  raw  and  bare,  standing 
on  the  high  prairie  above  the  lake  shore. 
The  houses  appeared  all  insignificant, 
and  run  up  in  various  directions,  without  any 
principle  at  all.  A  friend  of  mine  who  resides 
there  had  told  me  that  we  should  find  the  inns 
intolerable  at  the  period  of  the  great  land  sales, 
which  bring  a  concourse  of  speculators  to  the 
place.  It  was  even  so.  The  very  sight  of 
them  was  intolerable,  and  there  was  not  room 
for  our  party  among  them  all.  I  do  not  know 
what  we  should  have  done  (unless  to  betake 
ourselves  to  the  vessels  in  the  harbor)  if  our 
coming  had  not  been  foreknown  and  most 
kindly  pro vid  ed  for.  We  were  divided  between 
three  families,  who  had  the  art  of  removing 
all  our  scruples  about  intruding  on  perfect 
strangers.  None  of  us  will  lose  the  lively  and 
pleasant  associations  with  the  place  which  were 
caused  by  the  hospitalities  of  its  inhabitants. 

I  never  saw  a  busier  place  than  Chicago 
was  at  the  time  of  our  arrival.  The  streets 
were  crowded  with  land  speculators,  hurrying 
from  one  sale  to  another.  A  negro,  dressed 
up  in  scarlet,  bearing  a  scarlet  flag,  and  riding 
a  white  horse  with  housings  of  scarlet, 
27 


Mtmrm^ttntt^  of  €at\p  Cljicago 

announced  the  times  of  sale.  At  every  street 
corner  where  he  stopped,  the  crowd  flocked 
round  him;  and  it  seemed  as  if  some  preva- 
lent mania  infected  the  whole  people.  The 
rage  for  speculation  might  fairly  be  so  regarded. 
As  the  gentlemen  of  our  party  walked  the 
streets,  storekeepers  hailed  them  from  their 
doors,  with  offers  of  farms  and  all  manner  of 
land  lots,  advising  them  to  speculate  before 
the  price  of  land  rose  higher.  A  young  lawyer 
of  my  acquaintance  there  had  realized  five 
hundred  dollars  per  day  the  five  preceding 
days,  by  merely  making  out  titles  to  land. 
Another  friend  had  realized,  in  two  years,  ten 
times  as  much  money  as  he  had  before  fixed 
upon  as  a  competence  for  life.  Of  course, 
this  rapid  money  making  is  a  merely  tempo- 
rary evil.  A  bursting  of  the  bubble  must 
come  soon.  The  absurdity  of  the  speculation 
is  so  striking  that  the  wonder  is  that  the  fever 
should  have  attained  such  a  height  as  I  wit- 
nessed. The  immediate  occasion  of  the  bustle 
which  prevailed,  the  week  we  were  at  Chicago, 
was  the  sale  of  lots  to  the  value  of  two  millions 
of  dollars  along  the  course  of  a  projected  canal, 
and  of  another  set  immediately  behind  these. 
Persons  not  intending  to  game,  and  not  infected 
with  mania,  would  endeavor  to  form  some 
reasonable  conjecture  as  to  the  ultimate  value 
of  the  lots,  by  calculating  the  cost  of  the  canal, 
the  risks  from  accident,  from  the  possible  com- 
petition from  other  places,  etc.,  and,  finally, 
28 


^amtt  jitartmeau 


the  possible  profits,  under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances,  within  so  many  years'  purchase. 
Such  a  calculation  would  serve  as  some  sort  of 
guide  as  to  the  amount  of  purchase-money  to 
be  risked.  Whereas,  wild  land  on  the  banks 
of  a  canal  not  yet  even  marked  out,  was  selling 
at  Chicago  for  more  than  rich  land,  well  im- 
proved, in  the  finest  part  of  the  valley  of  the 
Mohawk,  on  the  banks  of  a  canal  which  is 
already  the  medium  of  an  almost  inestimable 
amount  of  traffic.  If  sharpers  and  gamblers 
were  to  be  the  sufferers  by  the  impending  crash 
at  Chicago,  no  one  would  feel  much  concerned; 
but  they,  unfortunately,  are  the  people  who 
encourage  the  delusion,  in  order  to  profit  by  it. 
Many  a  high-spirited  but  inexperienced  young 
man,  many  a  simple  settler,  will  be  ruined  for 
the  advantage  of  knaves. 

Others,  besides  lawyers  and  speculators  by 
trade,  make  a  fortune  in  such  extraordinary 
times.  A  poor  man  at  Chicago  had  a  pre- 
emption right  to  some  land,  for  which  he  paid 
in  the  morning  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars. 
In  the  afternoon,  he  sold  it  to  a  friend  of  mine 
for  five  thousand  dollars.  A  poor  Frenchman, 
married  to  a  squaw,  had  a  suit  pending  when  I 
was  there,  which  he  was  likely  to  gain,  for  the 
right  of  purchasing  some  land  by  the  lake  for 
one  hundred  dollars,  which  would  immediately 
become  worth  one  million  dollars. 

There  was  much  gayety  going  on  at  Chicago, 
as  well  as  business.  On  the  evening  of  our 
29 


titmim^ttntt^  of  €arlp  €!)icago 

arrival  a  Cancy  fair  took  place.  As  I  was  too 
fatigued  to  go,  the  ladies  sent  me  a  bouquet  of 
prairie  flowers.  There  is  some  allowable  pride 
in  the  place  about  its  society.  It  is  a  remark- 
able thing  to  meet  such  an  assemblage  of  edu- 
cated, refined  and  wealthy  persons  as  may  be 
found  there,  living  in  small,  inconvenient  houses 
on  the  edge  of  a  wild  prairie.  There  is  a 
mixture,  of  course.  I  heard  of  a  family  of 
half-breeds  setting  up  a  carriage  and  wearing 
fine  jewelry.  When  the  present  intoxication 
of  prosperity  passes  away,  some  of  the  inhab- 
itants will  go  back  to  the  eastward;  there  will 
be  an  accession  of  settlers  from  the  mechanic 
classes;  good  houses  will  have  been  built  for 
the  richer  families,  and  the  singularity  of  the 
place  will  subside.  It  will  be  like  all  the  other 
new  and  thriving  lake  and  river  ports  of 
America.  Meantime,  I  am  glad  to  have  seen 
it  in  its  strange  early  days. 

We  dined  one  day  with  a  gentleman  who  had 
been  Indian  agent  among  the  Winnebagos  for 
some  years.  He  and  his  lady  seem  to  have 
had  the  art  of  making  themselves  as  absolutely 
Indian  in  their  sympathies  and  manners  as  the 
welfare  of  the  savages  among  whom  they  lived 
required.  They  were  the  only  persons  I  met 
with  who,  really  knowing  the  Indians,  had  any 
regard  for  them.  The  testimony  was  univer- 
sal to  the  good  faith  and  other  virtues  of  savage 
life  of  the  unsophisticated  Indians;  but  they 
were  spoken  of  in  a  tone  of  dislike,  as  well  as 
30 


i^arriet  J^rtineau 


pity,  by  all  but  this  family,  and  they  certainly 
had  studied  their  Indian  neighbors  very 
thoroughly.  The  ladies  of  Indian  agents  ought 
to  be  women  of  nerve.  Our  hostess  had  slept 
for  weeks  with  a  loaded  pistol  on  each  side  of 
her  pillow,  and  a  dagger  under  it,  when  ex- 
pecting an  attack  from  a  hostile  tribe.  The 
foe  did  not,  however,  come  nearer  than  within 
a  few  miles.  Her  husband's  sister  was  in  the 
massacre  when  the  fort  was  abandoned,  in 
1 8 12.  Her  father  and  her  husband  were  in 
the  battle,  and  her  mother  and  young  brothers 
and  sisters  sat  in  a  boat  on  the  lake  near.  Out 
of  seventy  whites,  only  seventeen  escaped, 
among  whom  were  her  family.  She  was 
wounded  in  the  ankle,  as  she  sat  on  her  horse. 
A  painted  Indian,  in  warlike  costume,  came 
leaping  up  to  her,  and  seized  her  horse,  as  she 
supposed,  to  murder  her.  She  fought  him 
vigorously,  and  he  bore  it  without  doing  her 
any  injury.  He  spoke,  but  she  could  not 
understand  him.  Another  frightful  savage 
came  up,  and  the  two  led  her  horse  to  the  lake, 
and  into  it,  in  spite  of  her  resistance,  till  the 
water  reached  their  chins.  She  concluded 
that  they  meant  to  drown  her;  but  they  con- 
tented themselves  with  holding  her  on  her  horse 
till  the  massacre  was  over,  when  they  led  her 
out  in  safety.  They  were  friendly  Indians, 
sent  by  her  husband  to  guard  her.  She  could 
not  but  admire  their  patience  when  she  found 
how  she  had  been  treating  her  protectors. 

31 


Iflcmim^cence^  of  <2Barlp  Cfiicago 

We  had  the  fearful  pleasure  of  seeing  various 
savage  dances  performed  by  the  Indian  agent 
and  his  brother,  with  the  accompaniments  of 
complete  costume,  barbaric  music,  and  whoop- 
ing. The  most  intelligible  to  us  was  the  Dis- 
covery Dance,  a  highly  descriptive  pantomime. 
We  saw  the  Indian  go  out  armed  for  war.  We 
saw  him  reconnoitre,  make  signs  to  his  comrades, 
sleep,  warm  himself,  load  his  rifle,  sharpen  his 
scalping-knife,  steal  through  the  grass  within  a 
rifle-shot  of  his  foes,  fire,  scalp  one  of  them, 
and  dance,  whooping  and  triumphing.  There 
was  a  dreadful  truth  about  the  whole,  and  it 
made  our  blood  run  cold.  It  realized  hatred 
and  horror  as  effectually  as  Taglioni  does  love 
and  grace. 

We  were  unexpectedly  detained  over  the 
Sunday  at  Chicago;  and  Dr.  F.  was  requested 
to  preach.  Though  only  two  hours'  notice 
was  given,  a  respectable  congregation  was 
assembled  in  the  large  room  of  the  Lake  House, 
a  new  hotel  then  building.  Our  seats  were  a 
few  chairs  and  benches,  and  planks  laid  on 
trestles.  The  preacher  stood  behind  a  rough 
pine  table,  on  which  a  large  Bible  was  placed. 
I  was  never  present  at  a  more  interesting  serv- 
ice, and  I  know  that  there  were  others  who 
felt  with  me. 

From  Chicago,  we  made  an  excursion  into 

the  prairies.     Our  young  lawyer  friend  threw 

behind  him  the  five  hundred  dollars  per  day 

which  he  was  making,  and  went  with  us.     I 

32 


jparriet  J^aitincau 


thought  him  wise  for  there  is  that  to  be  had 
in  the  wilderness  which  money  cannot  buy. 
We  drove  out  of  town  at  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  too  late  by  two  hours;  but  it  was  im- 
possible to  overcome  the  introductions  to 
strangers,  and  the  bustle  of  our  preparations, 
any  sooner.  Our  party  consisted  of  seven, 
besides  the  driver.  Our  vehicle  was  a  wagon 
with  four  horses. 

We  had  first  to  cross  the  prairie,  nine  miles 
wide,  on  the  lake  edge  of  which  Chicago  stands. 
This  prairie  is  not  usually  wet  so  early  in  the 
year;  but  at  this  time  the  water  stood  almost 
up  to  the  nave  of  the  wheels,  and  we  crossed 
it  at  a  walking  pace.  I  saw  here,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  United  States,  the  American  prim- 
rose. It  grew  in  profusion  over  the  whole 
prairie,  as  far  as  I  could  see — •'hot  so  large  and 
fine  as  in  English  greenhouses,  but  graceful 
and  pretty.  I  now  found  the  truth  of  what  I 
had  read  about  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing 
distances  on  a  prairie.  The  feeling  is  quite 
bewildering.  A  man  walking  near  looks  like 
a  Goliath  a  mile  off.  I  mistook  a  covered 
wagon  without  horses,  at  a  distance  of  fifty 
yards,  for  a  white  house  near  the  horizon;  and 
so  on.  We  were  not  sorry  to  reach  the  belt 
of  trees  which  bounded  the  swamp  we  had 
passed.  At  a  house  here,  where  we  stopped 
to  water  the  horses  and  eat  doughnuts,  we  saw 
a  crowd  of  emigrants,  which  showed  that  we 
had  not  yet  reached  the  bounds  of  civilization. 

33 


^HemtnijEfcenceiBf  of  €arlp  Cfjicago 

A  little  further  on  we  came  to  the  River  Aux 
Plaines,  spelled  on  a  sign  board  "Oplain." 
The  ferry  here  is  a  monopoly,  and  the  public 
suffers  accordingly.  There  is  only  one  small 
flatboat  for  the  service  of  the  concourse  of 
people  now  pouring  into  the  prairies.  Though 
we  happened  to  arrive  nearly  first  of  the  crowd 
of  to-day,  we  were  detained  on  the  bank  above 
an  hour;  and  then  our  horses  went  over  at  two 
crossings,  and  the  wagon  and  ourselves  at  the 
third.  It  was  a  pretty  scene,  if  we  had  not  been 
in  a  hurry;  the  country  wagons  and  teams  in 
the  wood  by  the  side  of  the  quiet,  clear  river, 
and  the  oxen  swimming  over,  yoked,  with  only 
their  patient  faces  visible  above  the  surface. 
After  crossing,  we  proceeded  briskly  till  we 
reached  a  single  house,  where,  or  nowhere,  we 
were  to  dine.  The  kind  hostess  bestirred 
herself  to  provide  us  a  good  dinner  of  tea, 
bread,  ham,  potatoes,  and  strawberries,  of 
which  a  whole  pailful,  ripe  and  sweet,  had  been 
gathered  by  the  children  in  the  grass  round  the 
house,  within  one  hour.  While  dinner  was 
preparing,  we  amused  ourselves  with  looking 
over  an  excellent  small  collection  of  books  be- 
longing to  Miss  Cynthia,  the  daughter  of  the 
hostess. 

I  never  saw  insulation  (not  desolation)  to 
compare  with  the  situation  of  a  settler  on  a 
wide  prairie.  A  single  house  in  the  middle  of 
Salisbury  Plain  would  be  desolate.  A  single 
house  on  a  prairie  has  clumps  of  trees  near  it, 
34 


J^artiet  jWartmeau 


rich  fields  about  it  and  flowers,  strawberries, 
and  running  water  at  hand.  But  when  I  saw 
a  settler's  child  tripping  out  of  home  bounds, 
1  had  a  feeling  that  it  would  never  get  back 
again.  It  looked  like  putting  out  into  Lake 
Michigan  in  a  canoe.  The  soil  round  the 
dwellings  is  very  rich.  It  makes  no  dust,  it  is 
so  entirely  vegetable.  It  requires  merely  to  be 
once  turned  over  to  produce  largely;  and  at 
present  it  appears  to  be  inexhaustible.  As 
we  proceeded,  the  scenery  became  more  and 
more  like  what  all  travelers  compare  it  to — a 
boundless  English  park.  The  grass  was  wilder, 
the  occasional  footpath  not  so  trim,  and  the 
single  trees  less  majestic;  but  no  park  ever 
displayed  anything  equal  to  the  grouping  of 
the  trees  within  the  windings  of  the  blue, 
brimming  River  Aux  Plaines. 

We  had  met  with  so  many  delays  that  we 
felt  doubts  about  reaching  the  place  where  we 
had  intended  to  spend  the  night.  At  sunset, 
we  found  ourselves  still  nine  miles  from  Joliet,* 
but  we  were  told  the  road  was  good,  except  a 
small  "slew"  or  two;  and  there  was  half  a 
moon  shining  behind  a  thin  veil  of  clouds,  so 
we  pushed  on.  We  seemed  latterly  to  be 
traveling   on    a    terrace    overlooking   a   wide 

*  I  preserve  the  original  name,  which  is  that  of  the 
first  French  missionary  who  visited  these  parts.  The 
place  is  now  commonly  called  Juliet,  and  a  settlement 
near  has  actually  been  named  Romeo;  so  that  I  fear 
there  is  little  hope  of  a  restoration  of  the  honorable 
primitive  name. 

35 


Mtmmi^tmtt^  of  <2Eadp  Cljicago 

champaign,  where  a  dark,  waving  Hne  might 
indicate  the  winding  of  the  river  between  its 
clumpy  banks.  Our  driver  descended  and  went 
forward,  two  or  three  times,  to  make  sure  of 
our  road;  and  at  length,  we  rattled  down  a 
steep  descent  and  found  ourselves  among  houses . 
This  was  not  our  resting-place,  however.  The 
Joliet  hotel  lay  on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 
We  were  directed  to  a  foot-bridge  by  which 
we  were  to  pass;  and  a  ford  below  for  the 
wagon.  We  strained  our  eyes  in  vain  for  the 
foot-bridge;  and  our  gentlemen  peeped  and 
pried  for  some  time.  All  was  still  but  the 
rippling  river,  and  everybody  asleep  in  the 
houses  that  were  scattered  about.  We  ladies 
were  presently  summoned  to  put  on  our  water- 
proof shoes,  and  alight.  A  man  showed  him- 
self who  had  risen  from  his  bed  to  help  us  in 
our  need.  The  foot-bridge  consisted,  for  some 
way,  of  two  planks,  with  a  handrail  on  one  side; 
but,  when  we  were  about  a  third  of  the  way 
over,  one  half  of  the  planks,  and  the  handrail 
had  disappeared.  We  actually  had  to  cross  the 
rushing,  deep  river  on  a  line  of  single  planks; 
by  dim  moonhght,  at  past  eleven  o'clock  at 
night.  The  great  anxiety  was  about  Charley, 
but  between  his  father  and  the  guide,  he  man- 
aged very  well.  This  guide  would  accept 
nothing  but  thanks.  He  "did  not  calculate  to 
take  any  pay."  Then  we  waited  some  time 
for  the  wagon  to  come  up  from  the  ford. 
I  suspected  it  had  passed  the  spot  where  we 
36 


^amtt  ;|^artmeau 


stood  and  had  proceeded  to  the  village,  where 
we  saw  a  twinkhng  Hght,  now  disappearing 
and  now  reappearing.  It  was  so,  and  the 
driver  came  back  to  look  for  us,  and  tell  us 
that  the  light  we  saw  was  a  signal  from  the 
hotel-keeper,  whom  we  found  standing  on  his 
door-step,  and  sheltering  his  candle  with  his 
hand.  We  sat  down  and  drank  milk  in  the  bar, 
while  he  went  to  consult  with  his  wife  what 
was  to  be  done  with  us,  as  every  bed  in  the 
house  was  occupied.  We,  meanwhile,  agreed 
that  the  time  was  now  come  for  us  to  enjoy 
an  adventure  which  we  had  often  anticipated — 
sleeping  in  a  barn.  We  had  all  declared  our- 
selves anxious  to  sleep  in  a  barn,  if  we  could 
meet  with  one  that  was  air-tight  and  well 
supplied  with  hay.  Such  a  barn  was  actually 
on  these  premises.  We  were  prevented,  how- 
ever, from  all  practicing  the  freak  by  the 
prompt  hospitality  of  our  hostess.  Before  we 
knew  what  she  was  about,  she  had  risen  and 
dressed  herself,  put  clean  sheets  on  her  own 
bed,  and  made  up  two  others  on  the  floor  of 
the  same  room;  so  that  the  ladies  and  Charley 
were  luxuriously  accommodated.  Two  sleepy 
personages  crawled  downstairs  to  offer  their 
beds  to  our  gentlemen.  Mr.  L.  and  our  Chicago 
friend,  however,  persisted  in  sleeping  in  the 
barn.  Next  morning,  we  all  gave  a  very  grati- 
fying report  of  our  lodgings.  When  we  made 
our  acknowledgments  to  our  hostess,  she  said 
she  thought  that  people  who  could  go  to  bed 

37 


lUemira^cencc^  of  €atlp  Cl^icago 

quietly  every  night  ought  to  be  ready  to  give 
up  to  tired  travelers.  Whenever  she  travels,  I 
hope  she  will  be  treated  as  she  treated  us.  She 
let  us  have  breakfast  as  early  as  half-past  five 
the  next  morning,  and  gave  Charley  a  bun  at 
parting,  lest  he  should  be  too  hungry  before 
we  could  dine. 

The  great  object  of  our  expedition,  Mount 
Joliet,  was  two  miles  distant  from  this  place. 
We  had  to  visit  it  and  perform  the  journey 
back  to  Chicago,  forty  miles,  before  night. 
The  mount  is  only  sixty  feet  high;  yet  it  com- 
mands a  view  which  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
describe,  either  in  its  vastness  or  its  soft  beauty. 
The  very  spirit  of  tranquillity  resides  in  this 
paradisy  scene.  The  next  painter  who  would 
worthily  illustrate  Milton's  Morning  Hymn 
should  come  and  paint  what  he  sees  from  Mount 
JoHet,  on  a  dewy  summer's  morning,  when  a 
few  light  clouds  are  gently  sailing  in  the  sky, 
and  their  shadows  traversing  the  prairie.  I 
thought  I  had  never  seen  green  levels  till  now, 
and  only  among  mountains  had  I  before  known 
the  beauty  of  wandering  showers.  Mount  Joliet 
has  the  appearance  of  being  an  artificial  mound, 
its  sides  are  so  uniformly  steep  and  its  form 
so  regular.  Its  declivity  was  bristling  with 
flowers,  among  which  were  conspicuous  the 
scarlet  lily,  the  white  convolvulus,  and  a  tall, 
red  flower  of  the  scabia  form.  We  disturbed 
a  night-hawk,  sitting  on  her  eggs,  on  the 
ground.  She  wheeled  round  and  round  over 
38 


J^attid:  ;|^rtmeau 


our  heads,  and  I  hope  returned  to  her  eggs 
before  they  were  cold. 

Not  far  from  the  mount  was  a  log  house, 
where  the  rest  of  the  party  went  in  to  dry  their 
feet,  after  having  stood  long  in  the  wet  grass. 
I  remained  outside,  watching  the  light  showers, 
shifting  in  the  partial  sunlight  from  clump  to 
level,  and  from  reach  to  reach  of  the  brimming 
and  winding  river.  The  nine  miles  of  prairie 
which  we  had  traversed  in  dim  moonlight  last 
night  were  now  exquisitely  beautiful,  as  the  sun 
shone  fitfully  upon  them. 

We  saw  a  prairie  wolf,  very  like  a  yellow 
dog,  trotting  across  our  path  this  afternoon. 
Our  hostess  of  the  preceding  day,  expecting 
us,  had  an  excellent  dinner  ready  for  us.  We 
were  detained  a  shorter  time  at  the  ferry,  and 
reached  the  belt  of  trees  at  the  edge  of  Nine- 
mile  Prairie  before  sunset.  Here,  in  common 
prudence,  we  ought  to  have  stopped  till  the 
next  day,  even  if  no  other  accommodation  could 
be  afforded  us  than  a  roof  over  our  heads. 
We  deserved  an  ague  for  crossing  the  swamp 
after  dark,  in  an  open  wagon,  at  a  foot  pace. 
Nobody  was  aware  of  this  in  time,  and  we  set 
forward,  the  feet  of  our  weary  horses  plashing 
in  water  at  every  step  of  the  nine  miles.  There 
was  no  road,  and  we  had  to  trust  to  the  instinct 
of  driver  and  horses  to  keep  us  in  the  right 
direction.  I  rather  think  the  driver  attempted 
to  amuse  himself  by  exciting  our  fears.  He 
hinted  more  than  once  at  the  difficulty  of  find- 
39 


tiemini^tmtt^  of  €arlp  Cjjicago 

ing  the  way;  at  the  improbability  that  we  should 
reach  Chicago  before  midnight;  and  at  the 
danger  of  our  wandering  about  the  marsh  all 
night,  and  finding  ourselves  at  the  opposite 
edge  of  the  prairie  in  the  morning.  Charley 
was  bruised  and  tired.  All  the  rest  were 
hungry  and  cold.  It  was  very  dreary.  The 
driver  bade  us  look  to  our  right  hand.  A 
black  bear  was  trotting  alongside  of  us,  at  a 
little  distance.  After  keeping  up  his  trot  for 
some  time,  he  turned  off  from  our  track.  The 
sight  of  him  made  up  for  all — even  if  ague 
should  follow,  which  I  verily  believed  it  would. 
But  we  escaped  all  illness.  It  is  remarkable 
that  I  never  saw  ague  but  once.  The  single 
case  that  I  met  with  was  in  autumn,  at  the 
Falls  of  Niagara. 

I  had  promised  Dr.  F.  a  long  story  about 
English  politics,  when  a  convenient  opportunity 
should  occur.  I  thought  the  present  an  admir- 
able one ;  for  nobody  seemed  to  have  anything 
to  say,  and  it  was  highly  desirable  that  some- 
thing should  be  said.  I  made  my  story  long 
enough  to  beguile  four  miles;  by  which  time 
some  were  too  tired,  and  others  too  much 
disheartened,  for  more  conversation.  Some- 
thing white  was  soon  after  visible.  Our  driver 
gave  out  that  it  was  a  house,  half  a  mile  from 
Chicago.  But  no:  it  was  an  emigrant  encamp- 
ment on  a  morsel  of  raised,  dry  ground;  and 
again  we  were  uncertain  whether  we  were  in 
the  right  road.  Presently,  however,  the  Chicago 
40 


^arntt  f^ttintan 


beacon  was  visible,  shining  a  welcome  to  us 
through  the  dim,  misty  air.  The  horses  seemed 
to  see  it,  for  they  quickened  their  pace;  and 
before  half-past  ten  we  were  on  the  bridge. 

The  family  at  my  temporary  home  were 
gone  up  to  their  chambers;  but  the  woodfire 
was  soon  replenished,  tea  made,  and  the  con- 
versation growing  lively.  My  companions  were 
received  as  readily  at  their  several  resting 
places.  When  we  next  met,  we  found  ourselves 
all  disposed  to  place  warm  hospitality  very 
high  on  the  list  of  virtues. 


41 


[A  Lecture  delivered  before  the  Sunday  Lecture 
Society,  May  7,  1876.] 


ONE  year  ago,  I  gave  a  lecture  at  this 
place,  as  I  then  stated  to  you,  "with  a 
view  of  exciting  among  our  people  a 
spirit  of  historical  research  which  would  result 
in  recovering  lost  newspapers  and  documents, 
and  placing  upon  record  the  experiences  of 
our  early  settlers."  I  had  no  ambition  to 
figure  as  a  lecturer,  or  as  a  historian.  I  waited 
until  the  regular  lecture  course  was  finished. 
The  proceeds  were  given  with  pleasure  to  the 
Committee  for  the  employment  of  men  more 
at  home  in  the  lecture  field,  as  the  proceeds  of 
this  lecture  will  be, — such  men  as  pass  six 
months  in  preparing  one,  two,  or  three  lec- 
tures, and  pass  the  next  six  months  in  delivering 
them.  As  this  is  their  sole  means  of  living,  it 
is  right  that  they  should  be  well  paid  for  them; 
and  it  is  one  of  the  noble  objects  of  this  Asso- 
ciation to  furnish  you,  at  an  hour  when  you 
have  no  worldly  pursuits  nor  religious  enter- 
tainments, for  ten  cents,  what  other  people  on 
a  weekday  pay  from  fifty  cents  to  a  dollar  for. 
I  can  think  of  no  other  object  that  would 
have  brought  me  before  you  with  a  written 
lecture.  I  felt  that  the  duty  peculiarly  devolved 
43 


tianmi^ttntt^  of  <itatlp  Cl^icago 

upon  me,  and  I  performed  it  with  pleasure. 
There  are  scarcely  half  a  dozen  persons,  habit- 
uated to  public  speaking,  who  were  here  before 
the  city  was  incorporated.  I  was  sole  conduc- 
tor of  a  public  press  for  twenty-five  years 
lacking  a  few  months.  It  seemed  proper  that 
I  should  lead  off  in  this  important  matter. 

T/ie  Chicago  Democrat  was  commenced  on 
the  26th  of  November,  1833,  by  the  late  John 
Calhoun,  whose  widow  now  resides  in  this 
city.  Augustine  D.  Taylor,  now  living  in  this 
city,  saw  the  press  landed;  and  Walter  Kim- 
ball, now  living  in  this  city,  was  a  visitor  in 
the  ofifice,  and  saw  the  first  number  printed. 
That  paper  fell  into  my  hands  in  November, 
1836,  and  contained  not  only  a  history  of 
current  events,  but  also  a  vast  amount  of  infor- 
mation touching  the  early  history  of  the  entire 
Northwest.  It  is  a  sad  reflection  that  the 
same  fire  which  swept  away  my  files,  also 
swept  away  those  of  everyone  else,  and  all  our 
public  records.  But  there  are  copies  of  The 
Chicago  De7?iocrat  scattered  all  over  the  North- 
west, as  well  as  of  other  papers  and  documents 
that  will  be  of  service  in  restoring  our  lost 
history.  No  person  should  destroy  any  papers 
or  documents  of  a  date  prior  to  the  fire.  If 
there  is  no  one  who  wants  them,  let  them  be 
sent  to  me,  and  I  will  take  care  of  them  until 
our  Chicago  Historical  Society  becomes  reor- 
ganized. Our  old  settlers  are  fast  passing 
away.     Some  of  the  few  remaining  have  very 

44 


3Fof)n  H^ent^jDott|J 


retentive  memories.  Let  them  not  be  dis- 
couraged because  they  do  not  remember  dates. 
It  is  events  that  we  want;  and  by  comparing 
them  with  other  events,  the  dates  of  which  we 
know,  we  can  in  time  obtain  the  exact  dates 
of  all  of  them.  While  so  many  of  our  old 
settlers  have  passed  away,  there  yet  may  be 
remaining  among  their  effects  old  papers  whose 
value  their  legal  representatives  do  not  appre- 
ciate. Many  old  packages  have  been  given 
to  me,  with  the  remark  that  they  did  not  see 
of  what  use  they  could  be  to  me.  One  widow 
sent  me  some  pieces  of  newspapers,  which  the 
mice  had  kindly  spared,  with  the  remark  that 
she  was  ashamed  to  be  sending  such  old  trash 
to  any  one;  but  from  them  facts  enough  were 
gathered  to  save  another  widow  from  being 
swindled  out  of  her  homestead.  When  I  lec- 
tured before,  it  was  a  matter  of  dispute  what 
was  the  name  of  the  first  steamboat  that  ever 
came  to  Chicago,  and  who  was  the  person  in 
command.  She  came  to  bring  the  troops  for 
the  Black  Hawk  War  in  1832,  and  brought 
the  cholera  with  them.  All  that  was  known 
for  a  certainty  was  the  place  where  they  dug 
the  pit  into  which  they  most  unceremoniously 
plunged  the  dead  bodies.  That  was  remem- 
bered because  it  was  the  site  of  the  old  American 
Temperance  House,  northwest  corner  of  Lake 
Street  and  Wabash  Avenue;  and  many  old 
settlers  remembered  that  from  the  fact  that 
they  always  passed  by  the  Temperance  House 

45 


lUemim^cence^  of  <{BatIp  Cfjtcago 

on  the  other  side,  and  so  could  read  the  sign. 
The  river  and  lake  water,  which  we  had  to 
drink  in  those  days,  was  considered  unhealthy. 
I  made  a  statement  as  to  the  name  of  that 
boat,  based  upon  what  I  considered  the  best 
authority.  But  when  I  had  finished,  a  gentle- 
man came  upon  the  stage  and  gave  me  another 
name,  claiming  that  he  helped  fit  out  the  very 
vessel  at  Cleveland,  and  I  changed  my  manu- 
script to  correspond.  But  some  of  the  reporters 
published  the  statement  as  I  delivered  it,  and 
thus  two  statements  were  before  the  public  as 
given  by  me.  Thus  different  persons,  anxious 
to  assist  me  in  re-estabUshing  the  landmarks 
of  history,  had  an  opportunity,  by  quoting  the 
one  statement  to  provoke  discussion  by  insist- 
ing that  the  other  statement  was  true,  when 
they  really  did  not  know  any  more  about  the 
matter  than  I  did,  and  had  perhaps  consulted 
only  one  authority,  when  I  had  previously  con- 
sulted many.  But  a  lady,  in  looking  over  her 
old  papers,  found,  where  she  least  expected  it, 
a  Chicago  Democrat  dated  March  14,  1861, 
containing  a  letter  from  Captain  A.  Walker, 
giving  a  history  of  the  whole  expedition,  show- 
ing that  both  statements  were  correct.  The 
United  States  Government  chartered  four 
steamers  to  bring  troops  and  supplies  to  Chi- 
cago, and  their  names  were  the  Superior,  Henry 
Clay,  Willia^n  Perm,  and  Sheldon  Thompson ; 
but  the  Superior  and  Heriry  Clay  were  sent 
back  when  the  cholera  broke  out  on  board. 
46 


SFolJn  il^entiDortft 


Captain  Walker  says,  that  when  he  arrived 
at  Chicago,  in  July,  1832,  there  were  but  five 
dwelling-houses  here,  three  of  which  were  made 
of  logs.  There  are  other  old  newspapers  yet 
to  be  found  settling  questions  equally  as  inter- 
esting. 

All  must  admit,  that  there  has  been  more 
said  about  the  history  of  Chicago,  and  more 
important  publications  made,  the  past  year 
than  ever  before.  Booksellers  inform  me  that 
they  have  had  within  the  past  year,  a  greater 
demand  than  in  all  time  before  for  all  works 
appertaining  to  the  history  of  the  Northwest, 
and  that  they  have  had,  all  the  while,  standing 
orders  for  such  works  as  are  out  of  print. 
And  it  is  to  encourage  a  still  further  research 
that  I  address  you  today.  And,  if  the  result 
of  this  year's  researches  is  not  satisfactory,  I 
shall  feel  myself  in  duty  bound  to  address  you 
again  in  a  year  from  this  time.  Many  aged 
settlers  have  thanked  me  for  bringing  them 
into  a  higher  appreciation.  One  octogenarian 
lady  informs  me  that,  for  the  past  fifteen  years, 
when  any  young  company  came  to  the  house, 
she  was  expected  to  leave  the  room.  After 
my  lecture,  she  said  she  saw  a  gentleman 
approaching  the  house,  and  she  left  the  room 
as  usual.  But  soon  her  granddaughter  came 
out  and  said,  "It  is  you  he  wants."  And 
this  was  the  first  gentleman  caller  she  had  had 
for  fifteen  years.  When  she  entered  the  room, 
and  he  told  her  he  wanted  to  inquire  about 

47 


^emim^temt^  of  €arlp  Cfjicago 

early  Chicago,  she  felt  as  if  her  youth  had 
come  again,  and  she  told  the  others  that  it 
was  their  time  to  leave  the  room.  She  said, 
"He  has  been  to  see  me  six  times,  and  has 
printed  nearly  all  I  said,  and  there  is  not  another 
member  of  our  large  family  who  has  ever  said 
a  word  that  was  thought  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance to  be  printed;  and  now  I  am  thinking 
over  what  I  know  about  early  Chicago,  and 
letting  the  newspapers  have  it. "  She  observed 
with  great  force  that  the  young  folks  were 
constantly  asking  her  how  she  used  to  get 
along  amid  early  privations,  and  she  insisted 
that,  if  I  ever  lectured  again,  I  should  assert 
that  the  early  settlers  of  Chicago  were  the 
happiest  people  in  the  world,  as  I  believe  they 
were.  But  a  strict  regard  for  the  real  histor- 
ical purposes  of  this  lecture  will  permit  me  to 
allude  only  incidentally  to  our  early  sources  of 
entertainment. 

We  are  apt  to  speak  of  Chicago  as  a  new 
city.  But  it  is  not  so,  compared  with  the 
great  mass  of  other  cities  in  the  United  States. 
Take  out  Detroit,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  and 
New  Orleans,  and  what  is  there  older,  in  the 
date  of  its  incorporation,  in  the  West,  extend- 
ing to  the  Pacific?  But  when  our  city  was 
organized  we  had  no  Pacific  possessions,  save 
Oregon  Territory,  which  we  then  owned  in 
common  with  Great  Britain.  The  future  his- 
torian of  America  will  not,  however,  take  into 
consideration  the  date  of  our  incorporation. 
48 


^o^n  H^enttaortft 


The  ancient  Romans  were  in  the  habit  of  dat- 
ing events  from  the  foundation  of  their  city. 
But  Urds  condita  or  Chicago  condita  will  never 
be  a  reckoning  point  in  our  city's  history. 
Even  in  this  assembly,  there  are  not  as  many 
who  know  in  what  year  our  city  was  incorpo- 
rated as  in  one  of  our  public  schools  there  are 
children  who  can  spell  Melchisedec,  notwith- 
standing modern  politicians  have  kicked  from 
the  public  schools  the  Book  that  contained  the 
eighth  commandment. 

From  Washington's  inauguration,  in  1789, 
to  Chicago's  first  mayor's  inauguration,  in 
1837,  we  have  but  forty-eight  years,  a  period 
of  time  that  the  future  historian  of  America 
when  speaking  of  Chicago,  will  not  notice. 
But  a  resident  of  Chicago  was  not  elected  to 
Congress  until  1843,  ^^i^  y^t  he  became  asso- 
ciated not  only  with  men  prominent  under 
every  administration  of  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment, and  many  of  them  born  before  the 
inauguration  of  Washington,  but  with  some 
born  even  before  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, and  two,  at  least,  before  the  tea  was 
thrown  overboard  in  Boston  Harbor.  John 
Quincy  Adams  was  born  in  1767,  and  he  was 
accustomed  to  tell  us  that  among  his  earliest 
recollections  was  that  of  hearing  the  report  of 
the  guns  at  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  Ben- 
jamin Tappan,  Senator  from  Ohio,  was  born 
in  1773.  Then  there  was  Henry  Clay,  Secre- 
tary of  State  while  John  Quincy  Adams  was 

49 


titmm^temt0  of  €adp  Cjjicago 

President,  United  States  Senator  as  early  as 
1806,  Speaker  of  the  House  in  181 1,  born  in 
1777,  nine  months  after  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  one  who  could  collect  a 
larger  crowd  and  disperse  it  quicker  and  in 
better  humor  than  any  other  man  who  ever 
lived  in  America.  I  shall  never  forget  my  last 
interview  with  Henry  Clay,  and  its  description 
is  appropriate  to  the  history  of  Chicago.  Our 
harbor  was  suffering  for  appropriations.  Pres- 
ident Polk  had  vetoed  them  all.  A  change  of 
dynasties  had  been  effected.  Millard  Fillmore 
was  the  acting  President  and  he  was  a  warm 
friend  of  our  harbor.  It  was  in  the  spring  of 
185 1.  The  Harbor  bill  had  passed  the  House, 
and  was  sent  to  the  Senate  at  a  late  day,  and 
the  controlling  spirits  had  managed  to  keep  it 
back  until  a  still  later  day.  The  Southern 
Senators,  under  the  lead  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
spoke  against  time,  declaring  the  bill  uncon- 
stitutional. Clay  did  all  that  man  could  do 
for  us,  but  in  vain.  Our  bill  was  talked  to 
death.  Clay  came  on  with  us  to  New  York 
City,  to  take  a  steamer  for  New  Orleans.  As 
the  vessel  was  about  to  sail,  we  went  on  board 
to  take  our  leave  of  him,  and  we  all  expressed 
a  hope  that  the  next  time  he  returned  home 
he  would  go  around  by  the  Lakes.  He  replied, 
"I  never  go  where  the  Constitution  does  not 
go.  Hence  I  must  travel  by  salt  water.  Make 
your  lakes  constitutional.  Keep  up  the  war 
until  your  lake  harbors  get  their  deserved 
50 


S^ofjn  H^enttDortl^ 


appropriations,  and  then  I  will  come  out  and 
see  you."  We  finally  got  the  Constitution 
out  here,  but  not  until  after  Henry  Clay  had 
paid  the  debt  of  nature. 

Then  there  was  John  C.  Calhoun,  Vice-Pres- 
ident while  John  Quincy  Adams  was  President 
in  1825;  a  member  of  Congress  in  181 1;  Sec- 
retary of  War  when  the  reconstruction  of  our 
fort  was  completed  in  18 17;  born  in  1782,  the 
year  before  Great  Britain  acknowledged  our 
independence.  He  said  his  name  came  once 
very  nearly  being  associated  with  Chicago,  as 
the  new  fort  had  been  completed  while  he  was 
Secretary  of  War,  and  it  was  suggested  that  it 
be  called  Fort  Calhoun.  But  he  did  not  think  it 
right  to  change  the  old  name  which  had  been 
given  in  honor  of  General  Henry  Dearborn,  who 
was  Secretary  of  War  when  the  first  fort  was 
built,  in  1804.  Official  documents  tell  us  that 
in  1803,  Captain  John  Whistler,  then  a  lieuten- 
ant at  Detroit,  was  ordered  here  to  build  the 
fort,  that  his  troops  came  by  land,  and  that  he, 
with  his  family  and  his  supplies,  came  round  by 
the  lakes  in  the  United  States  schooner  Tracy, 
with  Dorr  for  master.  This  probably  was  the 
first  sail-vessel  that  ever  came  to  Chicago.  I 
can  think  of  no  business  that  could  have  brought 
one  here  before.  This  Captain  John  Whistler 
was  father  of  Colonel  William  Whistler,  who 
died  in  1863,  and  was  so  favorably  known  by 
our  early  settlers,  and  who  was  father-in-law  of 
the  late  Robert  A.  Kinzie,  of  this  city. 

51 


^Hemmi^cence^  of  <6arlp  Chicago 

Besides,  there  was  Judge  William  Wilkins, 
of  Pennsylvania,  born  in  1779;  Daniel  Webster, 
of  Massachusetts,  born  in  1782;  John  J. 
Crittenden,  of  Kentucky,  born  in  1786;  and 
Judge  Levi  Woodbury,  of  New  Hampshire, 
born  in  1789. 

Then  there  were  three  men  whose  names 
are  identified  with  the  history  of  the  West. 
There  was  Lewis  Cass,  born  in  1782,  appointed, 
in  1813,  governor  of  the  Northwestern  Terri- 
tory, then  embracing  Michigan,  Wisconsin, 
Iowa,  Minnesota  and  all  west.  And  William 
Woodbridge,  born  in  1 780,  appointed  in  1 8 14, 
secretary  of  the  same  Territory.  These  gen- 
tlemen were  walking  histories  of  the  North- 
west. Then  there  was  Thomas  H.  Benton, 
born  in  1782,  Senator  when  Missouri  was 
admitted  in  1 82 1,  who  made  his  first  trips  to 
Washington  on  horseback.  Add  his  knowl- 
edge to  that  of  Messrs.  Woodbridge  and  Cass, 
and  we  have  a  complete  history  of  the  entire 
West.  Many  now  before  me  will  remember 
the  patriotic  lecture  he  delivered  here  in  the 
spring  of  1857,  upon  the  approaching  crisis  to 
this  country,  about  a  year  before  his  death, 
probably  the  last  lecture  of  his  life.  Nor 
should  I  fail  to  mention  General  Henry  Dodge, 
the  Anthony  Wayne  of  his  period,  born  also  in 
1782,  one  of  the  first  Senators  from  Wisconsin. 

A  single  member  of  Congress,  and  the  first 
one  elected  from  Chicago,  was  associated  in 
Congress  with  two  members  who  served  in 

52 


STofjn  l©cnttDortl) 


President  Monroe's  Cabinet,  one  in  President 
J.  Q.  Adams',  three  in  President  Jackson's, 
one  in  President  Van  Buren's,  five  in  President 
Harrison's,  four  in  President  Tyler's,  four  in 
President  Polk's,  four  in  President  Taylor's, 
seven  in  President  Fillmore's,  four  in  President 
Pierce's,  five  in  President  Buchanan's,  and 
six  in  President  Lincoln's;  embracing  a  period 
of  American  official  history  from  1817;  and 
some  of  these  men  were  born  before  the  tea 
was  thrown  overboard  in  Boston  Harbor. 

For  some  years  after  Chicago  elected  her 
first  member  of  Congress,  the  widow  of  Presi- 
dent Madison  gave  receptions  at  Washington, 
and  on  the  first  of  January  her  guests  were 
shown  apartments  where  were  suspended 
dresses  which  she  had  worn  upon  all  great 
occasions,  including  the  receptions  of  Presi- 
dents Washington,  Adams,  Jefferson,  and  her 
husband.  James  Madison  was  not  only  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Continental  Congress,  but  also  a 
member  of  the  first  Congress  under  the  Con- 
stitution, and  so  continued  during  the  terms 
of  Washington's  Presidency;  and  was  Secretary 
of  State  under  Mr.  Jefferson's  Administration. 
So  this  lady  had  ample  opportunity  to  know 
the  customs  of  every  preceding  period  of  our 
governmental  history.  Now,  if  her  heirs 
bring  out  these  dresses  for  the  Centennial  (she 
had  no  children),  the  public  will  be  astonished 
at  their  remarkably  small  number,  she  not  hav- 
ing had,  in  over  a  quarter  of  a  century,  what 

53 


Jflemmi^cenceif  of  <6adp  Cljicago 

the  wife  of  the  average  office-holder  of  these 
days  will  have  in  a  single  year. 

Then  there  was  the  widow  of  General 
Alexander  Hamilton,  the  confidant  of  General 
Washington  in  the  Revolution,  and  his  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  who  was  killed  in  a  duel  by 
Aaron  Burr.  She  was  born  in  1757,  and  died 
at  Washington  in  1854.  She  was  soliciting 
Congress  to  aid  her  in  publishing  her  husband's 
works.  She  could  tell  all  about  her  father. 
General  Philip  Schuyler,  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution; the  personal  appearance  of  General 
Washington  and  his  lady;  and  of  almost  all 
other  public  persons  of  the  Revolutionary 
period.  In  fact,  when  you  sent  your  first 
member  of  Congress  to  Washington,  all  society 
was  redolent  with  scenes  of  the  Revolutionary 
period;  and  here  in  our  midst  were  several 
Revolutionary  soldiers;  and  one.  Father  David 
Kenison,  who  claimed  to  have  been  one  of 
the  party  who  threw  the  tea  overboard  in 
Boston  Harbor. 

You  will  excuse  me  for  digressing  from  the 
direct  purpose  of  this  lecture  if  I  here  state 
to  you,  that  since  I  commenced  writing  it,  I 
have  received  a  letter  from  an  old  colleague 
in  Congress,  who  was  born  the  same  year 
Great  Britain  acknowledged  our  independence 
—  1 783  —  as  it  will  probably  be  the  last  oppor- 
tunity that  many  of  you  will  ever  have  of 
hearing  a  letter  read  from  a  man  now  living 
who  is  older  than  our  government;  I  allude  to 

54 


2Fofjn  i©cnttDortj> 


the  Hon.  Artemas  Hale,  of  Bridgewater,  Massa- 
chusetts. He  is  the  oldest  ex-member  of 
Congress  now  Hving,  in  his  93d  year.  Do  you 
want  to  hear  what  the  veteran  says  ? 

My  health,  considering  my  age,  is  quite  good. 
But  my  time  for  taking  any  active  part  in  public 
matters  is  past.  Still,  however,  I  feel  a  deep  inter- 
est in  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of  our  beloved 
country,  and  am  pained  to  hear  of  the  corruption  and 
frauds  of  so  many  of  our  public  men.  It  appears  to 
me  that  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  our  circu- 
lating medium  should  have  a  fixed  and  permanent 
value,  which  it  cannot  have  but  by  a  specie  basis.  I 
should  be  very  much  pleased  to  receive  a  letter  from 
you,  with  your  views  of  public  matters. 

I  answered  his  letter  in  one  word,  "Amen!" 
Thus  you  will  see  that  our  history  laps  so 
closely  upon  the  Revolutionary  period  that 
there  is  no  precise  point  at  which  we  can  say  that 
Chicago  began,  unless  it  be  in  1832,  when  the 
marching  of  the  troops  of  General  Scott  to  Rock 
Island,  on  the  Mississippi,  called  attention  to  the 
fertility  of  the  soil  and  the  beautiful  locations 
west  of  us.  We  often  hear  of  different  men 
who  have  done  much  for  Chicago,  by  their 
writings,  their  speeches,  or  their  enterprise. 
But  I  have  never  heard  of  a  man  who  has  done 
more  for  Chicago  than  Chicago  has  done  for 
him.  God  made  Lake  Michigan  and  the  coun- 
try to  the  west  of  it ;  and,  when  we  come  to 
estimate  who  have  done  the  most  for  Chicago, 
the  glory  belongs  first  to  the  enterprising 
farmers  who  raised  a  surplus  of  produce  and 

55 


I!lcmimi0?cence$f  of  €arlp  €{jicago 

sent  it  here  for  shipment ;  and  second,  to  the 
hardy  sailors  who  braved  the  storms  of  our 
harborless  lakes  to  carry  it  to  market.  All 
other  classes  were  the  incidents,  and  not  the 
necessities,  of  our  embryo  city.  Chicago  is 
but  the  index  of  the  prosperity  of  our  agricul- 
tural classes.  And  to  this  day  we  hear  Chicago 
mercantile  failures  attributed  to  the  inabihty 
of  farmers  to  get  their  produce  to  market, 
when  the  roads  are  in  a  bad  condition.  If  we 
pass  by  the  impetus  given  to  the  agricultural 
development  of  the  country  west  of  Chicago 
by  the  Black  Hawk  War  of  1832,  we  must 
admit  that  we  are  passing  into  the  bi-centen- 
nial  period.  What  did  Chicago  know  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Revolutionary 
War,  the  Peace  of  1783,  or  the  inauguration 
of  Washington,  until  years  afterwards  ?  It  is 
probable  that  Captain  Whistler,  when  he  came 
here  to  build  the  fort  of  1804,  brought  to 
Chicago  the  first  information  on  these  subjects, 
and  probably  had  to  employ  an  interpreter  to 
explain  it.  It  was  probably  his  chaplain  that 
made  the  first  prayer  for  the  President  of  the 
United  States  and  all  in  authority;  and  his 
vessel  that  first  floated  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
on  Lake  Michigan.  But  there  were  prayers 
here  two  hundred  years  ago,  and  a  flag  that  did 
not  denote  our  national  independence,  but 
French  territorial  aggrandizement. 

I    have  used  my  best  efforts  to   find   the 
earliest  recognition  of  Chicago  by  any  official 
56 


3^01)11  l^enttoortlj 


authority.  Charlevoix  and  other  French  writ- 
ers make  mention  of  the  place,  but  I  cannot 
find  that  the  French  Government  in  any  way 
recognized  it.  After  the  Canadas  were  ceded 
to  Great  Britain,  the  whole  Illinois  country 
was  placed  under  the  local  administration  of 
Canada  by  a  bill  which  passed  the  British 
ParHament  in  1766,  known  as  the  "Quebec 
Bill;"  but  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  the 
Canadian  Government  took  any  official  notice 
of  this  place.  It  may  be  interesting  to  know 
what  was  religious  liberty  in  those  days.  At 
the  period  of  the  change  of  government  from 
the  French,  under  the  treaty  of  Paris,  in  1763, 
Thomas  Gage  was  commander-in-chief  of  the 
British  king's  troops  in  North  America;  and 
in  1764  he  issued  a  proclamation  authorizing 
the  Roman  Catholics  of  Illinois  to  exercise 
the  worship  of  their  religion  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  they  did  in  Canada,  and  to  go  wherever 
they  pleased,  even  to  New  Orleans. 

In  October,  1778,  the  House  of  Burgesses 
of  Virginia  created  the  County  of  Illinois, 
appointed  John  Todd,  of  Kentucky,  civil 
commander,  and  authorized  all  the  civil  offi- 
cers to  which  the  inhabitants  had  been  accus- 
tomed, to  be  chosen  by  a  majority  of  the 
citizens  of  their  respective  districts.  From  this 
we  should  infer  that  there  were  then  settle- 
ments somewhere  in  the  state.  But  I  can 
find  nothing  of  Chicago  while  we  belonged  to 
Virginia.  The  late  Wm.  H.  Brown,  of  this  city, 
57 


lUemmi^cence^  of  <6atip  CJjicago 

in  a  lecture  before  our  Historical  Society,  in 
1865,  said:  "The  French  inhabitants  of  Kas- 
kaskia,  in  18 18,  the  year  in  which  I  made  my 
residence  there,  claimed  that  that  village  was 
founded  in  1707.  There  were  evidences  at  that 
time  (the  remains  of  former  edifices,  among 
them  the  Jesuit  College)  that  their  chronology 
was  substantially  correct. " 

In  1788,  General  Arthur  St.  Clair  became 
governor  of  the  entire  Northwestern  Territory, 
and  was  the  first  man  to  fill  that  position.  The 
seat  of  government  for  Chicago  people  was 
then  at  Marietta,  Ohio.  In  1790  he  came  to 
Kaskaskia  (some  writers  say  Cahokia)  and 
organized  what  is  now  the  entire  State  of 
Illinois  into  a  county,  which  he  named  for 
himself.  Besides  this  there  were  but  two 
counties  in  the  whole  Northwestern  Territory — 
the  County  of  Knox,  embracing  Indiana,  and 
the  County  of  Hamilton,  embracing  Ohio. 
But  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  Chicago  at 
that  time  was  known  to  the  civil  authorities. 
Besides  consulting  all  the  early  writers  upon  the 
subject,  I  have  corresponded  with  all  the  men 
in  the  country  who  I  thought  would  know  any- 
thing concerning  it.  And  I  cannot  find  anyone 
who  has  any  authority  for  stating  that  there 
was  any  official  recognition  of  Chicago  until 
General  Wayne's  treaty,  made  at  Greenville 
in  1795,  in  which  he  acquired  title  from  the 
Indians  to  "a  tract  of  land,  six  miles  square, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Chicago  River,  where  a 
58 


5Fo|jn  f^enttDortl^ 


fort  formerly  stood."  Greenville  is  in  the  south- 
western part  of  Ohio,  in  Dark  County,  upon 
the  Indiana  state  line.  There  is  nothing  to 
show  that,  at  that  time.  General  Wayne  came 
any  farther  west,  not  even  as  far  as  Fort  Wayne, 
although  he  appears  to  have  had  the  same 
knowledge  of  the  importance  of  the  position 
of  Fort  Wayne  as  he  did  of  that  of  Chicago. 
Why  the  fort  at  this  place,  referred  to,  was  built 
here,  and  who  built  it,  I  have  not  been  able  to 
ascertain.  As  the  French  and  Indians  were 
always  allies,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  French 
should  have  built  such  a  fort.  It  may  be  that  it 
was  built  by  one  of  the  tribes  of  Indians  to  de- 
fend the  place  from  some  other  tribe.  But 
offsetting  tradition  against  General  Wayne's 
official  recognition  of  a  fort  here,  it  may  be  that 
there  was  a  mere  trading  and  storehouse,  sur- 
rounded by  pickets.  The  prevailing  impression 
is  that  such  was  the  character  of  all  those  places 
called  forts  prior  to  the  abdication  of  the  French 
authority.  Colonel  Gurdon  S.  Hubbard,  our 
oldest  living  settler,  who  was  here  in  1 8 1 8,  favors 
this  idea,  and  has  reminded  me  of  an  almost  for- 
gotten, but  at  one  time  extensively  received, 
tradition,  that  this  old  fort,  or  palisaded  trading- 
post,  was  on  the  West  Side,  upon  the  North 
Branch,  near  where  Indiana  Street  now  crosses 
it;  and  it  was  erected,  or  at  least  was  at  one 
time  occupied,  by  a  Frenchman  named  Garie, 
and  hence  the  tradition  that  our  North  Branch 
river  was  once  called  "Garie's  River," 


59 


fUmm^tmtt^  of  ^arlp  C[)icago 

There  was  a  powerful  chief  of  the  Illinois 
named  Chicagou,  who  went  to  France  in  the 
year  1725.  The  Hon.  Sidney  Breese,  who 
settled  at  Kaskaskia  in  18 18,  who  was  in  the 
United  States  Senate  six  years  during  my 
service  in  Congress,  and  who  still  honors  our 
Supreme  Court,  is  the  best  informed  man  in 
Illinois  history  now  living.     He  writes  me : 

I  know  of  no  authorized  recognition  of  Chicago 
as  a  place  on  this  globe,  anterior  to  Wayne's  treaty. 
I  have  a  copy  of  a  map,  which  I  made  from  one  in 
the  Congressional  Library,  which  I  found  among  the 
papers  of  President  Jefferson,  made  in  1685 ;  in  which 
is  a  place  on  the  lake  shore,  about  where  your  city 
is,  marked  "Chicagou;"  and  Father  Louis  Vivier, 
who  was  a  priest  at  Kaskaskia  in  1752,  in  a  letter  to 
his  Superior,  says:  "Chikagou  was  a  celebrated 
Indian  chief,  who  went  to  Paris,  and  the  Duchess  of 
Orleans  at  Versailles,  gave  him  a  splendid  snuff-box, 
which  he  was  proud  to  exhibit,  on  his  return,  to  his 
brother  redskins." 

Some  have  contended  that  our  city  was 
named  from  him.  But  Charlevoix,  in  his 
History  of  New  France,  gives  us  that  name 
as  early  as  167 1,  in  which  year,  he  says,  a 
French  voyageur,  named  Nicholas  Perrot, 
went  to  Chicago,  at  the  lower  end  of  Lake 
Michigan,  where  the  Miamis  then  were.  This 
was  before  Father  James  Marquette  came  here. 

The  treaty  of  Greenville,  at  the  time  con- 
sidered of  no  other  importance  than  as  settling 
our  difficulties  with  the  Indians,  afterwards  be- 
came a  matter  of  very  serious  importance  in  the 
settlement  of  our  difficulties  with  Great  Britain, 
60 


g^ofjn  i©enttDortf> 


while  the  Treaty  of  Ghent  was  being  negotiated 
1 8 14.  When  the  commissioners  met,  the 
Americans  were  surprised  by  the  British 
commissioners  demanding  the  recognition  of 
that  treaty  as  the  basis  of  negotiations  as  to 
the  western  boundary  of  the  United  States. 
The  British  at  first  refused  to  negotiate 
except  upon  the  basis  of  that  treaty,  and 
insisted  upon  the  entire  sovereignty  and  inde- 
pendence of  the  Indian  Confederacy.  They 
claimed  the  Indians  as  their  allies,  and  consid- 
ered themselves  bound  to  protect  them  in  their 
treaty.  It  will  be^emembered  that  the  Indians 
had,  for  a  long  time,  received  annuities  from 
the  French  Government,  and  that  these  annu- 
ities were  continued  by  Great  Britain  after  the 
treaty  of  cession  in  1763;  and  that,  after  our 
independence  was  acknowledged  by  Great 
Britain,  the  Indians  annually  sent  delegations 
to  Canada  to  receive  these  annuities.  During 
the  pendency  of  these  negotiations  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  there  had  been  an  alHance,  offensive 
and  defensive,  between  the  celebrated  Chief 
Tecumseh  and  the  British  authorities.  After 
discussing  the  matter  and  finding  the  Americans 
peremptorily  refusing  to  acknowledge  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  Indians,  the  British  commis- 
sioners proposed  that  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  should  exercise  a  joint  protector- 
ate over  the  Indians,  and  consider  all  the 
territory  not  acknowledged  to  belong  to  the 
United  States  by  the  treaty  of  Greenville  as 
61 


iHemmi^ccncejBf  of  <tEarIp  C[)icago 

embraced  within  that  protectorate.  This  would 
have  left  the  six  miles  square  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Chicago  River  in  a  permanently  Indian  country. 
The  West  would  have  been  situated  similarly 
to  Oregon,  which  was  so  long  held  under  the 
joint  occupation  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States;  and  the  final  result  of  the  joint  occupa- 
tion would  have  been  the  same  as  in  Oregon, 
a  division  of  the  territory;  a  part  of  it,  perhaps 
including  Chicago,  being  attached,  in  the  end, 
to  Canadian  provinces.  The  British  commis- 
sioners were  so  pertinacious  on  this  subject 
that  it  was  thought  at  one  time  that  negotiations 
would  have  to  be  given  up.  And  when  the 
British  commissioners  finally  yielded,  the  British 
Government  received  the  bitter  curses  of  the 
Indians. 

Billy  Caldwell,  better  known  in  Chicago  as 
Sauganash,  who  lived  here  several  years  after  I 
came  here,  and  was  well  known  to  me  person- 
ally, had  been  the  intimate  friend  of  Tecumseh, 
and  declared  that  if  Tecumseh  had  been  living 
he  would  have  aroused  all  the  Indians  in  the 
Northwest  in  a  general  warfare  upon  the 
Canadian  settlements,  in  retaliation  for  what 
he  considered  the  treachery  at  Ghent.  Cald- 
well, to  the  day  of  his  death,  insisted  that 
Tecumseh,  not  long  before  he  was  killed, 
predicted  that  the  British  in  time  would 
abandon  them,  and  seriously  meditated,  dur- 
ing the  War  of  1812,  upon  going  over  to  the 
Americans  with  all  his  forces.  Caldwell  was 
62 


3Foftn  l©mtttjort|) 


the  son  of  an  Irish  colonel  in  the  British  army, 
stationed  upon  the  Detroit  frontier,  whose 
name  he  bore.  His  mother  was  Tecumseh's 
own  sister.  He  ultimately  went  to  his  tribe 
at  the  Pottawatomie  Reservation  in  Shawnee 
County,  Kansas,  and  died  there. 

When  the  Illinois  territory  was  a  part  of 
Indiana,  our  seat  of  government  was  at  Vin- 
cennes.  When  it  was  set  off  from  Indiana,  in 
1809,  the  whole  territory  was  organized  into 
two  counties,  St.  Clair  and  Randolph.  Judge 
Breese,  whose  home  was  in  Kaskaskia  in  18 18, 
informs  me  that  his  home  was  never  in  the 
same  county  with  Chicago,  being  in  the  south- 
ern County  of  Randolph. 

From  St.  Clair  County,  what  is  now  Cook 
County  was  set  off  in  the  new  County  of 
Madison;  thence  in  the  new  County  of  Craw- 
ford; in  18 19,  in  the  new  County  of  Clark; 
and  so  little  was  then  known  of  the  northern 
country,  that  the  act  creating  Clark  County 
extended  it  to  the  Canada  line.  In  1821,  we 
were  set  off  in  the  new  County  of  Pike;  in 
1823,  in  the  new  County  of  Fulton;  and  in 
1825,  in  the  new  County  of  Peoria.  I  have 
not  only  caused  the  county  records  of  these 
counties  to  be  examined,  but  have  also  corre- 
sponded with  their  earliest  settlers,  and  I  can 
find  no  oflEicial  recognition  of  Chicago  until  we 
reach  Fulton  County.  The  clerk  of  that  county 
writes  me,  that  the  earliest  mention  of  Chicago 
in  the  records  is  the  order  of  an  election  at  the 

63 


Mrnimi^ttntt^  of  <Batiti  Chicago 

term  of  the  Fulton  County  Commissioners' 
Court,  September  2,  1823,  to  choose  one 
major  and  company  officers,  polls  at  Chicago 
to  be  opened  at  the  house  of  John  Kinzie. 
The  returns  of  this  election  cannot  be  found, 
if  they  were  ever  made.  As  the  county  was 
organized  in  1823,  this,  of  course,  was  the 
first  election  under  the  organization  of  the 
county.  The  same  court  ordered,  April  2y, 
1824,  that  the  sheriff,  Abner  Eads,  be  released 
from  paying  the  money  tax  collected  at  Chicago 
by  Ransom.  In  those  days  the  sheriffs  were 
ex-officio  collectors  of  taxes.  It  seems  that 
they  had  defaulters  in  those  days,  as  well  as 
now.  It  would  be  a  gratifying  historical  fact  if 
we  could  know  how  much  this  man  Ransom 
collected,  as  showing  the  financial  resources  of 
our  population  at  that  time,  when  all  the  real 
estate  belonged  to  the  general  government. 
The  numerous  followers  of  this  man  Ransom 
have  shown  their  ingratitude  to  the  founder  of 
their  sect  by  their  failure  to  erect  any  monument 
to  his  memory,  or  to  name  after  him  a  street,  a 
schoolhouse,  or  a  fire-engine  house.  These 
Ransomites  are  getting  to  be  a  numerous  body  of 
men,  and  their  motto  is,  "  Keep  what  you  col- 
lect." One  election  and  one  steal  are  all  that  the 
records  of  Fulton  County  show  for  Chicago. 
The  clerk  of  Peoria  County  writes  me,  that 
his  earUest  records  commence  March  8,  1825. 
From  these  records  I  learn  that  John  Kinzie 
was  commissioned  justice  of  the  peace  July  28, 
64 


gfofjn  H^enttoortJ 


1825.  He  was  the  first  justice  of  the  peace 
resident  at  Chicago.  Alexander  Wolcott,  his 
son-in-law,  and  John  B.  Beaubien,  were  com- 
missioned September  10  of  the  same  year. 

I  have  also  the  assessment  roll  of  John  L. 
Bogardus,  assessor  of  Peoria  County,  for  the 
year  1825,  dated  July  25,  which  is  as  follows: 

Taxpayer's  Name  Valuation  Tax 

1  Beaubien,  John  B $1000  $10.00 

2  Clybourne,  Jonas 625  6.25 

3  Clark,  John  K 250  2.50 

4  Crafts,  John 5000  50.00 

5  Clermont,  Jeremy 100  i.oo 

6  Coutra,  Louis 50  .50 

7  Kinzie,  John 500  5.00 

8  Laframboise,  Claude lOO  l.oo 

9  Laframboise,  Joseph 50  .50 

10  McKee,  David 100  i.oo 

11  Piche,  Peter 100  i.oo 

12  Robinson,  Alexander 200  2.00 

13  Wolcott,  Alexander 572  5.72 

14  Wilemet  [Ouilmette]  Antoine  400  4.OO 

The  entire  valuation,  land  then  being  not 
taxable,  of  all  the  property  in  Chicago  was 
$9,047,  and  the  rate  was  one  per  cent.  But 
the  property  of  the  American  Fur  Company 
was  assessed  to  John  Crafts,  its  agent,  at 
$5,000.  He  was  a  bachelor,  and  died  the 
next  year,  and  Mr.  Kinzie  was  appointed  in 
his  place.  Deducting  the  American  Fur  Com- 
pany's assessment,  we  have  only  $4,047,  as 
the  personal  property  of  Chicago,  in  1825, 
$40.47  as  the  tax,  and  thirteen  as  the  number 
of  taxpayers. 

65 


Mtmm^tmtt^  of  €arfp  Cfjicago 

The  clerk  sent  me  a  copy  of  two  poll-books 
used  at  Chicago  —  one  at  an  election  held 
August  7,  1826,  containing  thirty-five  names; 
the  other  at  an  election  held  August  2,  1830, 
containing  thirty-two  names;  thus  showing  a 
decrease  of  three  voters  in  four  years.  I  will 
read  you  the  names  of  our  voters  in  1826,  and 
you  will  see  that  only  ten  of  the  fourteen  tax- 
payers in  1825  then  voted: 

1  Augustin  Banny.     [Bannot?] 

2  Henry  Kelley. 

3  Daniel  Bourassea. 

4  Cole  Weeks 

5  Antoine  Ouilmette.  1825 

6  John  Baptiste  Secor. 

7  Joseph  Catie. 

8  Benjamin  Russell. 

9  Basile  Displattes. 

ID  Francis  Laframboise,  Sr. 

11  Francis  Laframboise,  Jr. 

12  Joseph  Laframboise.  1825 

13  Alexander  Larant. 

14  Francis  Laducier. 

15  Peter  Chavellie. 

16  Claude  Laframboise.  1825 

17  Jeremiah  Clairmore  [Clermont?]  '25 

18  Peter  Junio. 

19  John  Baptiste  Lafortune. 

20  John  Baptiste  Malast. 

21  Joseph  Pothier. 

22  Alexander  Robinson.  1825 

23  John  K.  Clark.  1825 

24  David  McKee.  1825 

25  Joseph  Anderson. 

26  Joseph  Pepot. 

27  John  Baptiste  Beaubien.  1825 

28  John  Kinzie.  1825 

66 


^Foljn  i^cnttDortlj 


29  Archibald  Clybourne. 

30  Billy  Caldwell. 

31  Martin  Vansicle. 

32  Paul  Jamboe. 

33  Jonas  Clybourne.  1825 

34  Edward  G.  Ament. 

35  Samuel  Johnston. 

I  will  now  read  you  the  names  of  our  voters 
in  1830,  showing  that  only  three  of  the  four- 
teen tax  payers  of  1825  then  voted: 

1  Stephen  J.  Scott, 

2  John  B.  Beaubien,  1825,  1826. 

3  Leon  Bourassea. 

4  B.  H.  Laughton. 

5  Jesse  Walker. 

6  Medard  B.  Beaubien. 

7  John  Baptiste  Chavellea. 

8  James  Kinzie. 

9  Russell  E.  Heacock. 

10  James  Brown. 

11  Jos.  Laframboise.  1825,  1826. 

12  John  L.  Davis. 

13  William  See. 

14  John  Van  Horn. 

15  John  Mann. 

16  David  Van  Eaton. 

17  Stephen  Mack. 

18  Jonathan  Nash  Bailey. 

19  Alexander  McDale.     [McDole?] 

20  John  S.  C.  Hogan. 

21  David  McKee.  1825,  1826 

22  Billy  Caldwell.  1826 

23  Joseph  Thibeaut. 

24  Peter  Frique. 

25  Mark  Beaubien. 

26  Laurant  Martin. 

27  John  Baptiste  Secor.  1826 

28  Joseph  Bauskey. 

67 


^emini^cmce^  of  €arip  Cljicago 

29  Michael  Welch. 

30  Francis  Laducier.  1826 

31  Lewis  Ganday. 

32  Peresh  Leclerc. 

It  is  a  remarkable  commentary  upon  the 
fickleness  of  our  population,  that  only  six  of  the 
men  who  voted  in  1826  voted  in  1830;  and 
these  six  were  half-breeds  or  government  em- 
ployes. Father  John  Kinzie,  however,  died 
between  the  two  elections,  upon  the  6th  of 
January,  1828,  aged  65.  But  there  were  some 
not  voting  at  the  second  election,  such  as  the 
late  Archibald  Clybourne,  his  father  Jonas,  and 
half-brother  John  K.  Clark,  who  ended  their 
days  with  us.  The  half-breeds  and  French 
who  did  not  vote  may  have  been  away  on  a 
hunting  and  trading  expedition.  The  voters 
in  1826  seem  to  have  understood  their  true  in- 
terest, being  dependents  upon  the  fort,  as 
every  one  of  them  voted  the  Administration 
ticket,  John  Quincy  Adams  then  being  Presi- 
dent. If  there  were  ever  three  men  in  the 
United  States  who  electrified  the  whole  country 
with  their  fiery  denunciations  of  the  mihtary 
power,  they  were  President  John  Quincy 
Adams,  his  Vice-President,  John  C.  Calhoun, 
and  his  Secretary  of  State,  Henry  Clay. 
Neither  of  the  three  ever  forget  General  Jack- 
son! It  would  have  seemed  malicious,  and  yet 
quite  pertinent,  on  the  part  of  the  Chicago  mem- 
ber of  Congress  to  have  asked  either  of  these 
gentlemen  whether  it  was  not  a  singular  fact, 
68 


^tifya  l^enttDortJ 


that  while  Mr.  Adams  was  President,  the  people 
of  Chicago  unanimously  voted  with  the  fort, 
Ninian  Edwards  for  governor,  Samuel  H. 
Thompson  for  lieutenant-governor,  Daniel 
P.  Cook  for  congressman,  the  Administration 
candidates,  each  received  thirty-five  votes, 
being  all  there  were.  The  much-complained- 
of  military  power  of  the  present  day  has  never 
secured  a  greater  unanimity  in  the  colored  vote 
of  the  South.  But  four  years  later,  in  1 830, 
when  Andrew  Jackson  was  President,  there 
was  a  material  change  in  the  politics  of  the 
place.  John  Reynolds,  the  Jackson  candidate 
for  governor,  received  twenty-two  out  of  the 
thirty-two  votes  cast.  Of  the  six  who  voted  at 
both  elections,  and  who  voted  for  the  Adams 
candidate  in  1826,  five  voted  for  the  Jackson 
candidate  in  183O;  showing  their  consistency  by 
each  time  voting  with  the  Administration,  or 
more  properly  with  the  fort.  Billy  Caldwell,  the 
Sauganash,  the  nephew  of  Tecumseh,  voted 
the  Jackson  ticket;  while  Joseph  Laframboise, 
a  noted  Indian  chief,  stood  out  and  voted  against 
it.  Perhaps  General  Jackson,  in  some  of  the 
early  Indian  wars,  had  caused  the  death  of 
some  of  Laframboise'  relatives  or  friends. 
Up  to  1848,  we  had  the  viva  voce  system  of 
voting  in  the  State  of  Illinois.  Each  man  went 
up  to  the  polls,  with  or  without  a  ticket  in  his 
hands,  and  told  whom  he  wanted  to  vote  for, 
and  the  judges  so  recorded  it.  But  in  those 
days,  the  masses  knew  as  little  whom  they 
69 


^[lotiini^ccncc^  of  €arip  Cljicago 

were  voting  for  as  they  do  now.  For  the 
judges  often  read  off  the  names  of  the  candi- 
dates from  the  tickets  and  the  voter  would  nod 
his  head.  There  was  no  chance,  however,  for 
stufiHng  the  ballot-box  under  the  viva  voce 
system.  It  may  account  for  the  falling  off  of 
the  vote  between  1826  and  1830,  that  some 
persons  would  not  vote  the  Jackson  ticket,  and 
yet  disliked  to  vote  against  the  fort.  There 
were  four  of  the  Laframboise  family  voting  in 
1826  and  only  one  in  1830.  The  names  of 
voters  in  1826  indicate  that  full  three  fourths  of 
them  were  French  and  half-breeds.  The  judges 
in  1826  were  Father  John  Kinzie,  the  late 
General  John  B.  Beaubien,  and  Billy  Caldwell. 
The  clerks  were  the  late  Archibald  Clybourne 
and  his  half-brother  John  K.  Clark.  The  elec- 
tion was  held  at  the  Agency  House,  in  Chicago 
Precinct,  Peoria  County.  The  Agency  House 
was  on  the  North  Side,  and  was  the  second 
house  built  in  Chicago,  Mr.  Kinzie's  being 
the  first.  The  Indian  agent  was  Dr.  Alex- 
ander Wolcott,  who  died  in  1830,  son-in-law 
of  Mr.  Kinzie. 

The  election  of  1 830  was  held  in  the  house 
of  James  Kinzie,  Chicago  Precinct,  Peoria 
County.  This  house  was  on  the  West  Side, 
near  the  forks  of  the  river.  The  South  Side 
had  no  status  at  that  time,  there  being  nothing 
then  on  that  side  except  the  fort  and  lighthouse 
building,  and  the  log  houses  of  the  two 
Beaubien  brothers, — one  residing  at  the  lake 
70 


3Po?m  il^enttDortf) 


shore,  and  one  near  the  forks  of  the  river, 
with  such  a  marsh  between  that,  much  of  the 
time,  their  most  convenient  way  of  visiting 
each  other  was  in  boats  in  the  river. 

The  judges  at  the  election  of  1830  were 
Russell  E.  Heacock,  the  first  lawyer  to  settle 
in  Chicago,  General  John  B.  Beaubien,  one  of 
the  judges  in  1826,  and  James  Kinzie.  The 
clerks  were  Medard  B.  Beaubien,  well  known 
in  this  city,  now  principal  agent  of  the  Potta- 
watomie tribe  of  Indians  at  Silver  Lake, 
Shawnee  County,  Kansas,  and  Jesse  Walker. 
The  names  of  voters  in  1830  indicate  a  large 
influx  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race;  but  among 
them  was  one  Irishman,  probably  the  first 
Irishman  who  ever  trod  the  Chicago  soil.  The 
first  thought  that  occurred  to  me  was.  What 
could  bring  an  Irishman  out  here  all  alone? 
Who  was  to  help  him  celebrate  St.  Patrick's 
Day?  Who  was  to  attend  his  wake?  His 
name  was  Michael  Welch.  What  have  our 
many  Irish  aldermen  been  thinking  of  that 
they  have  never  given  us,  in  honor  of  their 
first  settler,  a  Welch  Avenue,  a  Welch  Street, 
a  Welch  schoolhouse  or  a  Welch  fire-engine? 
The  next  thought  that  occurred  to  me  was, 
What  could  he  be  doing  out  here  all  by  him- 
self? Now,  what  would  an  Irishman  naturally 
do  when  he  found  himself  here  all  alone,  hun- 
dreds of  miles  distant  from  any  other  Irishman? 
He  was  a  bugler.  He  blew  his  horn.  He 
was  a  discharged  soldier,  and,  having  faithfully 

71 


titmrni^tmct^  of  <2Bar!p  Cfjicago 

served  out  his  time,  he  stopped  long  enough  to 
vote  the  straight  Jackson  ticket,  and  then  joined 
Captain  Jesse  Brown's  Rangers  and  marched 
on  to  clear  the  Indians  out  of  the  way  of  his 
coming  countrymen,  who  were  already  aroused 
by  his  bugle's  blast,  as  his  patron  St.  Patrick, 
centuries  before,  had  cleared  the  snakes  out  of 
his  way  in  the  land  of  his  nativity. 

Captain  Jesse  Brown  was  a  brother  of  the  late 
Judge  Thomas  C.  Brown,  of  our  Supreme 
Court,  and  was  authorized  by  President  Jack- 
son to  raise  a  company  of  men,  who  were  called 
"Brown's  Rangers,"  and  was  ordered  to  re- 
port to  General  Stephen  W.  Kearny,  on  the 
western  frontier. 

There  is  a  prevailing  impression  that  Irish- 
men never  go  anywhere  except  in  squads.  But 
the  history  of  the  American  continent  will 
prove  that  Irishmen  have  ventured  as  far  alone 
upon  hazardous  explorations  as  any  other  men. 
But  he  dislikes  to  stay  alone.  Like  the  honey 
bee,  when  he  finds  a  good  thing,  he  wants 
some  others  to  come  and  help  him  enjoy  it. 
My  original  congressional  district  extended 
north  to  the  Wisconsin  line,  west  to  the  Rock 
River  Valley,  south  so  as  to  embrace  Princeton, 
LaSalle,  Bloomington,  Urbana,  and  Danville. 
I  had  to  travel  all  over  this  district  with  a 
horse  and  buggy,  and  visit  spare  settlements. 
I  often  found  an  Irishman  cultivating  the  soil 
alone.  But  when  I  made  a  second  visit  I 
found  more  Irishmen  there,  or  else  the  original 
72 


SFofjn  i^entttjortf) 


one  had  gone .  Governor  Winthrop,  of  Boston, 
in  his  journal  under  date  of  1642,  tells  us  of  one 
Darby  Field,  an  Irishman,  who  could  not  rest 
contented  after  his  landing  in  America  until  he 
had  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  White  Mountains. 
He  was  the  first  man  to  ascend  Mount  Wash- 
ington, and  when  asked  why  he  went,  replied, 
"Merely  to  take  a  look  at  the  country!" 

The  official  dispatches  of  one  of  the  battles 
of  the  Mexican  War  commended  the  conduct 
of  Private  Sullivan,  of  one  of  our  Chicago 
regiments.  In  the  battle  he  had  advanced 
before  his  company,  engaged  in  a  single  com- 
bat with  a  Mexican  officer,  and  killed  him.  I 
called  President  Polk's  attention  to  the  report, 
and  asked  for  Sullivan's  promotion.  He  re- 
ferred the  matter  to  the  adjutant-general.  Time 
passed  along  and  no  appointment  was  sent  to 
the  Senate.  I  called  upon  the  adjutant-gen- 
eral, and  he  read  me  a  letter  from  Sullivan's 
superior  officer,  commending  his  courage  and 
general  good  conduct,  but  strongly  protesting 
against  his  appointment  as  lieutenant  in  the 
regular  army,  on  account  of  his  deficiency  in 
West  Point  education.  I  appealed  to  the  Presi- 
dent, and  it  did  not  take  long  to  satisfy  him 
that  good  fighting  in  war-time  would  counter- 
balance all  deficiencies  in  education,  and 
Sullivan  was  promoted.  Some  time  after  the 
close  of  the  war,  his  father  called  upon  me, 
said  he  had  not  heard  from  his  son  for  a  long 
time,  and  wanted  me  to  find  him.     Many  of 

73 


^deminijefcencejef  of  <JEarIp  Cljicago 

you  will  remember  the  father,  Jeremiah  Sullivan, 
at  one  time  justice  of  the  peace, — a  tall  and 
well-proportioned  gentleman,  with  as  prepos- 
sessing a  general  appearance  as  any  gentleman 
who  walked  our  streets.  I  wrote  to  Washing- 
ton, and  received  for  answer  that  Sullivan 
resigned  his  lieutenancy  at  the  close  of  the 
war.  Inside  of  the  official  letter  was  a  note 
marked  ' '  private  and  unofficial . "  "  Tell  Sulli- 
van's  father  to  read  the  news  from  Mexico. 
I  enclose  some  scraps  from  a  New  Orleans 
newspaper,  and  the  Colonel  Sullivan  therein 
mentioned  is  reported  to  be  the  late  Lieutenant 
Sullivan  of  the  regular  army."  Some  time 
afterwards,  an  officer  of  the  army  gave  me  the 
following  account :  After  the  close  of  the  war 
with  Mexico,  some  of  the  officers  were  tarrying 
late  at  dinner,  when  Lieutenant  Sullivan  entered 
and  was  saluted  with,  "Will  you  join  us, 
Lieutenant  Sullivan?"  "Colonel  Sullivan,  if 
you  please,  gentlemen, ' '  was  the  reply.  Where- 
upon one  of  the  officers  said,  "It  will  not  sur- 
prise us  at  all  if  you  are  Colonel  Sullivan.  If 
your  killing  that  Mexican  was  of  so  much 
account  as  to  put  you  on  an  equality  with  us 
who  have  studied  four  years  at  West  Point, 
and  have  seen  considerable  active  service,  a 
a  little  personal  favoritism  might  carry  you  still 
higher,  and  make  you  a  colonel.  Why, 
Lieutenant  Sullivan,  if  you  should  kill  another 
Mexican,  those  pohticians  at  Washington  would 
make  you  commander-in-chief!"  "Gentle- 
74 


3FoJ)n  IBcnthjortJj 


men,"  said  Sullivan,  "it  is  business  that  brings 
me  here.  Here  is  my  commission  as  colonel  in 
the  Mexican  revolutionary  army,  and  now  you 
know  my  authority.  And  now,  here's  my  busi- 
ness in  this  paper,  which  I  will  read. ' '  He  then 
read  a  paper  authorizing  and  requesting  him  to 
employ  a  competent  engineer  upon  his  staff. 
The  officers  reminded  him  that  they  knew 
nothing  of  the  face  of  the  Mexican  country, 
had  no  maps,  knew  not  his  route,  and  insisted 
that  they  could  be  of  no  service  to  him.  * '  You 
do  not  understand  me,  gentlemen,"  replied 
Sullivan;  "it  is  not  for  what  I  am  going  to 
do  that  I  want  any  of  your  assistance.  I  only 
want  you  to  map  it  out  after  I  have  done  it. 
You  are  always  talking  about  your  military 
school,  and  what  you  have  studied,  and  the 
like  of  you  will  be  at  school  hereafter,  and  they 
will  want  to  study  Sullivan's  route  to  the 
capital  of  Mexico;  and  if  ever  I  should  be 
emperor,  whom  would  I  want  for  secretary 
of  war  but  my  own  engineer?  "  Sullivan  set 
out  upon  his  march  with  no  one  to  map  out 
his  route.  He  penetrated  regions  where  no 
man  had  ever  been  before.  He  came  out  of 
forests  where  men  least  expected  him.  He 
appeared  to  be  everywhere,  and  the  inhabitants 
could  make  no  calculation  where  he  was  not. 
They  either  all  joined  him,  or  fled  before  him. 
He  had  everything  his  own  way,  until,  in  his 
efforts  to  join  the  main  army,  he  found  himself 
in  the  fortified  country.     Here  he  missed  his 

75 


^tmim^tttttt^  of  <t£aiAp  Chicago 

engineer  and  his  military  education.  He  was 
wounded,  taken  prisoner,  marched  into  the 
Plaza,  a  bullet  pierced  his  heart,  and  that  was 
the  last  of  Sullivan.  But  it  just  took  a  Chicago 
Irish  boy  to  teach  the  Emperor  Maximilian  how 
to  die  the  death  of  a  soldier  some  twenty  years 
afterwards;  and  Sullivan  had  as  much  right 
in  Mexico  as  Maximilian. 

There  are  67  names  upon  the  two  voting- 
lists  of  1825  and  1830.  Six  voted  at  both 
elections,  leaving  61  different  names,  which, 
with  the  four  on  the  tax-list  of  1825  who  did 
not  vote  at  either  election,  constitute  the  65 
from  whom  our  first  families  are  descended. 

And  as  there  may  be  some  pride  in  after 
years  in  tracing  one's  connection  with  our  first 
families,  the  real  Knickerbockers  of  Chicago, 
I  have  taken  some  pains  to  obtain  interviews 
or  hold  correspondence  with  such  of  them  as 
might  be  living,  and  with  the  descendants  of 
such  as  are  dead.  Of  a  very  large  proportion 
of  them  I  can  obtain  no  knowledge  whatever. 
I  shall  publish  all  their  names,  and  at  some 
future  time  shall  publish  what  I  have  ascer- 
tained, or  may  hereafter  ascertain,  of  their 
history  and  of  their  descendants.  When  it  was 
known,  in  i860,  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  was 
to  make  Chicago  a  visit,  one  of  our  society 
men  suggested  that  it  was  my  duty,  as  mayor 
of  the  city,  to  select  about  a  hundred  from  our 
first  families  and  give  the  Prince  a  ball.  I  asked 
him  to  give  the  names  of  the  hundred  from  the 
76 


gPoljn  il^enttDottfj 


first  families.  This  he  said  he  was  unwilHng 
to  do.  I  asked  him  then  to  give  me  the  names 
of  even  ten  of  our  first  famihes,  meaning,  of 
course,  nine  besides  his  own.  This  he  also 
declared  himself  unwilling  to  do.  But  if,  at 
any  future  time,  any  one  of  our  society  men 
should  wish  to  make  a  party  from  our  first 
families,  he  may  derive  some  assistance  from 
this  lecture. 

At  this  time  I  think  there  are  but  three  of 
those  voters  living.  One  is  Medard  B.  Beau- 
bien,  son  of  the  late  General  John  B.  Beaubien, 
of  this  city,  the  leading  man  among  the  Potta- 
watomie Indians,  in  Kansas.  The  second  is 
David  McKee,  now  living  near  Aurora,  Illinois. 
He  was  born  in  Virginia  in  i8oo,  and  went  to 
Cincinnati  when  a  young  man,  as  a  blacksmith. 
Under  the  treaty  of  Chicago,  made  with  the 
Indians  by  General  Cass,  in  1821,  the  govern- 
ment was  to  keep  a  blacksmith  here,  who  was  to 
work  exclusively  for  the  Indians.  Colonel  Benja- 
min B.  Kerchival,  then  Indian  agent,  afterwards 
a  prominent  citizen  of  Detroit,  went  to  Cincin- 
nati and  employed  McKee  to  come  here  in  that 
capacity.  McKee  reached  Fort  Wayne,  and 
there  waited  for  a  guide.  At  that  time  the 
only  mail  Chicago  had  was  a  monthly  one  to 
Fort  Wayne.  He  did  not  wait  long  before 
the  exploring  expedition  of  Major  Stephen  H. 
Long  reached  that  place,  and  he  accompanied 
it  to  Chicago.  Turning  to  the  history  of  that 
expedition,  by  Professor  William  H.  Keating, 


lUeminiiGfcence^  of  <6adp  €l)icago 

of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  I  find  that 
orders  were  issued  to  Major  Long,  April  25, 
1823,  for  him  to  commence  at  Philadelphia, 
thence  to  proceed  to  Wheeling,  thence  to 
Chicago  or  Fort  Wayne,  thence  to  Fort  Arm- 
strong or  Dubuque  lead  mines,  thence  up  the 
Mississippi  to  Fort  St.  Anthony,  etc.  The 
expedition  reached  Fort  Wayne,  May  26,  1823, 
and  Professor  Keating  speaks  of  the  fort  then 
there  as  erected  in  18 14  on  the  site  of  the  old 
fort,  the  location  of  which  had  been  designated  by 
General  Anthony  Wayne  after  his  victory  over 
the  confederated  Indians  on  the  20th  of  August, 
1794,  which  gave  rise  to  the  treaty  of  Green- 
ville in  the  following  year.  The  Professor 
says  also,  that  the  expedition  fortunately  met 
at  Fort  Wayne  the  express  sent  from  Chicago 
for  letters,  and  obtained  him  as  guide.  They 
left  Fort  Wayne  May  29,  1823.  Their  caval- 
cade consisted  of  seven  persons,  including  the 
soldier  mail-carrier,  and  a  colored  servant;  and 
they  had  two  horses  loaded  with  provisions. 
On  the  5th  of  June  they  reached  Fort  Dearborn, 
Chicago,  having  been  eight  days  in  traveling 
the  distance  of  216  miles,  an  average  of  2J 
miles  a  day,  their  distance  exceeding  the  usual 
allowance  by  16  miles,  in  consequence  of  their 
circuitous  route  to  avoid  the  Elkhart  River. 
The  railroad  train  now  leaving  here  at  9  a.  m. 
reaches  Fort  Wayne  at  2  p.  m.  The  post  at 
Chicago  was  abandoned  a  few  months  after 
the  party  reached  it,  in  consequence  of  the 
78 


SFoftn  Jl^enttDottlJ 


rapid  extension  of  the  white  population  west- 
ward, and  the  establishment  of  a  chain  of 
military  posts  along  the  Mississippi  River, 
rendering  the  continuance  of  the  force  here 
unnecessary.  An  Indian  agent,  Dr.  Alexander 
Wolcott,  uncle  of  our  present  county  surveyor 
of  the  same  name,  remained  here  to  keep  up 
amicable  relations  with  the  Indians,  and  to 
attend  to  their  wants,  daily  becoming  greater 
in  consequence  of  the  increasing  scarcity  of 
game.  Fort  Dearborn  was  not  occupied  by 
soldiers  again,  except  temporarily  in  transit, 
until  1832,  when  the  Black  Hawk  troubles 
broke  out.  When  Mr.  McKee  came  here  there 
were  but  two  houses;  one  belonging  to  John 
Kinzie,  the  other  to  his  son-in-law.  Dr. 
Alexander  Wolcott,  the  Indian  agent — Mr. 
Kinzie's  having  been  built  first.  Both  houses 
were  built  of  logs,  and  lined  with  cedar  bark. 
The  third  house  was  built  by  Joseph  Pothier, 
a  Frenchman,  and  one  of  the  voters  here  in 
1826,  and  who  until  recently  was  a  resident  of 
Milwaukee.  He  married  an  Indian  half-breed, 
brought  up  by  Mr.  Kinzie,  and  was  striker  for 
Mr.  McKee  in  the  blacksmith  shop.  Mr,  McKee 
was  married  by  Mr.  Kinzie,  at  Mr.  Kinzie's 
house,  and  he  built  the  fourth  house.  All  four 
houses  were  on  the  north  side  of  the  river. 

The  inhabitants  were  soldiers,  Frenchmen 
in  the  employ  of  the  American  Fur  Company, 
and  Indians.  When  the  fort  was  not  gar- 
risoned, and  the  fur-traders  were  in  the  country 

79 


ilemini^centejef  of  €arip  Cfjicago 

making  their  purchases,  the  Indians  constituted 
almost  the  entire  population.  In  1827-28, 
Mr.  McKee  carried  the  mail  once  a  month  to 
Fort  Wayne.  As  his  Indian  pony  had  to  carry 
the  mail-bag  and  the  blankets  for  him  to  sleep 
upon,  he  could  not  carry  corn  for  the  pony  and 
provisions  for  himself.  He  drove  the  pony  in 
front  of  him,  and  cut  down  an  elm  or  bass- 
wood  tree  for  the  pony  to  browse  upon  during 
the  night.  He  carried  a  gun  with  which  he 
killed  the  game  for  his  own  food.  His  route 
was  from  here  to  Niles,  Michigan,  thence  to 
Elkhart,  Indiana,  and  thence  to  Fort  Wayne. 
His  average  trip  from  this  place  to  Fort  Wayne 
was  fourteen  days;  the  quickest  time  he  ever 
made  was  ten  days.  General  John  McNeil,  one 
of  the  heroes  in  the  battle  of  Lundy's  Lane, 
commanded  the  fort  when  Mr.  McKee  came 
to  Chicago.  Soon  after  his  arrival,  a  sailing 
vessel,  called  the  Heartless,  undertook  to  enter 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  ran  ashore,  and  was 
beached  in  the  sand.  They  tried  to  cut  her 
out,  but  she  went  to  pieces.  About  a  year 
thereafter  the  first  vessel  entered  the  harbor, 
and  anchored  opposite  the  fort.  It  was  the 
United  States  revenue  cutter  Fairplay.  When 
we  speak  of  the  first  vessel  coming  to  Chicago, 
there  is  always  a  confusion  between  the  vessels 
that  anchored  outside  and  the  vessels  that 
actually  came  up  into  the  river.  It  is  claimed 
that  this  United  States  revenue  cutter  Fairplay 
was  the  first  one  to  actually  enter  the  river. 
80 


3foljn  l©enttDort|j 


In  1826,  there  came  a  sailing  vessel  called  the 
Young  Tiger,  to  enter  the  river,  but  she 
anchored  out  in  the  lake,  slipped  her  cable, 
and  went  ashore. 

Mr.  E.  Buell,  now  residing  in  Clinton  County, 
Iowa,  near  Lyons,  aged  75,  claims  that  he  was 
pilot  and  navigator  on  the  schooner  Aurora, 
Captain  Titus,  that  came  to  Chicago  in  1820 
or  1 821;  but  he  leaves  the  question  unsettled 
as  to  whether  or  not  he  came  up  into  the  river. 
The  steamers  which  brought  here  the  troops 
of  General  Scott,  in  1832,  had  to  anchor  some 
distance  outside.  The  persons  claiming  to 
have  been  upon  the  first  vessel  that  passed 
over  the  Chicago  bar  and  came  up  into  the 
river  are  even  more  numerous  than  those  claim- 
ing to  be  descendants  of  the  persons  who  had 
the  first  white  child  born  in  Chicago.  I  will 
not  discuss  this  matter  now,  as  the  mass  of  you 
care  less  about  those  who  had  the  first  child 
than  you  do  about  those  who  are  to  have  the 
next  one,  and  what  is  to  become  of  it. 

The  third  man  now  living  who  voted  in 
Chicago  Precinct,  Peoria  County,  in  1830,  is 
our  well-known  fellow-citizen,  Mark  Beaubien. 
He  came  here  in  1826,  to  visit  his  brother, 
John  B.  Beaubien,  who  was  an  employe  of  the 
American  Fur  Company,  and  who  lived  in  a 
log  house  near  the  lake  shore,  near  the  mouth 
of  the  river,  on  the  South  Side.  Mark  returned 
to  Detroit,  and  brought  his  family  here,  and 
built  him  a  log  house,  fronting  the  river,  on 
81 


^tmm^tmtt^  of  <6arlp  CJjicago 

what  is  known  as  the  "Old  Wigwam  Lot,"  on 
the  corner  of  Lake  and  Market  streets;  it  being 
at  the  time  the  only  dwelling-house  on  the  South 
Side,  except  his  brother's.  He  constructed  it 
for  hotel  purposes,  and,  when  the  Indian  chief 
Sauganash  learned  his  design,  he  told  him  that 
Americans  named  their  hotels  after  big  men, 
and  asked  him  what  he  was  going  to  call  it. 
Mr.  Beaubien  took  the  hint,  and  said,  "I'll  call 
it  Sauganash!"  A  few  years  afterwards,  he 
built  a  large  addition  to  it,  which  was  the  first 
frame  house  built  on  the  South  Side.  It  was 
in  this  house  that  I  took  my  first  meal,  on 
my  arrival  here  in  1 836,  it  being  then  kept  by 
John  Murphy.  Mr.  Beaubien  was  born  in 
1800,  and  in  Detroit,  where  his  father  was  also 
born;  but  his  grandfather  was  an  emigrant 
from  France.  He  established  the  first  ferry, 
at  the  forks  of  the  river.  He  was  an  original 
fiddler,  having  inherited  the  art  in  the  natural 
way;  and  he  will  probably  die  one.  In  case  of 
the  absence  of  the  music  at  any  of  our  parties 
in  olden  times,  Mr.  Beaubien  was  always  sent 
for,  and  when  one  fiddle-string  broke,  he  was 
good  for  the  three;  and,  when  another  broke, 
he  could  still  keep  up  the  music;  and  if  there 
were  only  one  string  left,  a  party  would  never 
go  away  disappointed  if  Mr.  Beaubien  was 
left  to  play  upon  it.  He  has  done  much  to 
keep  up  our  first  families,  having  had  twenty- 
three  children.  His  grandchildren  had  num- 
bered fifty-three  when  the  great-grandchildren 
82 


3Fo|)n  il^enttDortJ 


began  to  make  their  appearance,  and  he  stopped 
counting.  I  introduce  him  to  you  today  as  the 
only  man  you  will  probably  ever  see  who  wit- 
nessed the  surrender  of  an  American  army. 
God  grant  that  such  an  event  may  never  happen 
again!  During  the  war  of  1812,  Mr.  Beaubien's 
father,  hearing  that  the  town  (Detroit)  was 
about  to  be  bombarded  by  the  British  army, 
had  ordered  his  children  to  go  down  into  the 
cellar,  when  news  came  that  General  Hull  had 
surrendered.  Mark  Beaubien  saw  General 
Hull  and  his  staff  rowed  over  to  the  Canadian 
shore,  and  then  the  soldiers  were  taken  over 
under  the  charge  of  the  red-coat  officials. 

Cook  County  was  set  off  from  Peoria 
County  under  an  act  passed  1831.  The  first 
election  was  August,  1832.  The  county  was 
named  for  the  Hon.  Daniel  P.  Cook,  son-in-law 
of  Governor  Ninian  Edwards,  who  was  one  of 
the  first  United  States  Senators  from  this  state. 
Mr.  Cook  was  a  member  of  Congress  from  1820 
to  1827,  and  died  in  1827,  aged  32,  one  of  the 
most  talented  men  who  ever  lived  in  this  state. 
As  our  poll-Hsts  of  the  first  election,  in  1832, 
were  burnt,  I  can  no  longer  trace  our  first 
families,  and  those  who  wish  to  marry  into  them 
must  look  back  to  those  who  were  taxed  in 
1825,  or  voted  in  1826  or  1830,  if  they  do  not 
wish  their  honors  disputed.  Cook  County 
then  included  the  present  counties  of  Lake, 
McHenry,  DuPage,  and  Will,  all  west  being 
included   in   Jo    Daviess   County.     The   only 

83 


tiemm^ttmt^  of  <iBarip  Cfjicago 

voting-place  of  Cook  County  at  that  time  was  at 
Chicago.  The  highest  number  of  votes  cast 
for  all  the  candidates  for  any  one  office  in  1832 
was  114,  against  32  in  1830  and  35  in  1826. 

It  seems  to  have  been  the  practice  then,  as 
now,  to  take  our  officers  from  Galena,  and 
then,  as  now,  they  were  very  good  men. 
Galena  and  Chicago  were  then  in  the  same  rep- 
resentative and  senatorial  districts.  Colonel 
James  M.  Strode  was  elected  to  the  Senate, 
and  Benjamin  Mills  to  the  House,  both  being 
attorneys-at-law  at  Galena.  Elijah  Went- 
worth,  Jr.,  who  died  at  Galesburg,  Illinois,  on 
the  1 8th  of  November  last,  received  all  the  votes 
for  coroner  at  this  election.  He  wrote  me, 
just  before  his  death,  that  he  went  with  his 
father,  Elijah  Wentworth,  Sr.,  from  Maine  to 
Kentucky;  they  moved  thence  to  Dodge ville, 
Wisconsin,  where  he  was  living  at  the  time  Jef- 
ferson Davis  was  constructing  Fort  Winnebago, 
about  75  miles  distant.  Davis  had  been  ordered 
there  soon  after  his  graduation  at  West  Point 
in  1828,  and  he  often  visited  Dodgeville  in 
attendance  upon  social  parties,  and  is  well  re- 
membered by  old  settlers  there  to  this  day. 
In  1830,  Mr.  Wentworth  and  his  father  moved 
to  Chicago  and  rented  a  new  hotel  of  James 
Kinzie,  then  the  best  in  Chicago,  on  the  West 
Side,  near  the  forks  of  the  river.  It  was  a 
log  house,  with  upright  boards  upon  the  out- 
side. He  carried  the  mail  from  Chicago  to 
Niles  once  a  month. 

84 


5o{jn  IBenttDortfj 


At  the  annual  election  in  August,  1834,  the 
highest  number  of  votes  for  all  the  candidates 
for  any  one  office  was  528,  against  114  in  1832. 
Thus  our  population  began  to  increase.  This 
vote  was  for  the  whole  County  of  Cook.  In 
1835,  the  highest  number  of  votes  in  the  entire 
county,  for  all  the  candidates  for  any  one  office, 
was  1064.  And  rehgious  enterprise  and  liber- 
ality had  so  far  advanced  that,  at  the  Ladies' 
Fair  at  the  old  St.  James,  the  mother  of 
Episcopacy  in  the  Northwest,  on  the  i8th  of 
June  in  that  year,  the  receipts  were  $1,431. 
In  the  spring  of  1837,  at  our  first  municipal 
election,  the  city  alone  cast  709  votes.* 

It  seems  not  to  be  generally  known  that, 
up  to  the  time  of  the  opening  of  the  Illinois 
and  Michigan  Canal,  Chicago  was  not  at  all 
troubled  with  mosquitoes;  a  blessing  which 
amply  compensated  for  many  of  our  early 
deprivations. 

The  history  of  Chicago  furnishes  one  with  a 
complete  history  of  an  irredeemable  paper- 
money  system.  Emigration  was  fast  tending 
westward  in  1835.  Government  land  was 
$1.25  per  acre.  The  emigrants  had  little  or 
no  money,  and  would  purchase  land  on  credit 
at  greatly  advanced  prices.  Eastern  specu- 
lators flocked  here  and  took  advantage  of  this 
condition  of  things.  The  government  money 
received  for  lands  would  be  deposited  in  the 

*For  list  of  names  on  the  poll-book,  see  "Fergus' 
Directory  for  1839." 

85 


Mtmm^tmtt^  of  €arlp  Clfticago 

banks,  credited  to  the  government,  and  then 
reloaned  back  to  speculators.  Thus  the  gov- 
ernment had  credits  in  banks  to  more  than  the 
amount  of  their  capital,  and  their  assets  con- 
sisted almost  entirely  of  the  notes  of  western 
speculators.  The  government  was  out  of 
debt,  and  had  no  use  for  its  surplus,  which 
was  forming  the  basis  of  those  large  speculative 
loans,  and  men  became  even  more  excited  and 
reckless  than  were  the  land  operators  here  in 
Chicago  at  the  time  of  the  recent  panic.  Be- 
sides, money  was  taken  from  every  branch  of 
business  to  invest  in  these  western  specula- 
tions. The  President  of  the  United  States  had 
no  power  to  stop  the  sales  of  lands  or  to  limit 
bank  discounts.  He  saw  the  immediate  neces- 
sity of  arresting  this  condition  of  things,  and 
he  had  no  other  way  to  do  it  than  to  issue  an 
order  that  nothing  but  gold  and  silver  should 
be  received  for  the  public  lands.  According 
to  an  invariable  law,  a  redundancy  of  paper 
had  driven  the  precious  metals  out  of  the 
country,  and  the  banks  had  not  the  specie 
wherewith  to  redeem  their  bills,  which  were 
fast  being  presented  to  obtain  land-office 
money.  The  banks  all  failed,  and  corporations 
and  individuals  issued  certificates  of  indebted- 
ness, which  were  interchanged  as  currency. 
States,  counties,  and  cities  paid  their  debts 
in  warrants  upon  an  empty  treasury.  The 
canal  commissioners  paid  contractors  in  scrip, 
and  the  contractors  paid  their  laborers  in  a 
86 


SFofjn  H^enttDottfj 


lesser  scrip,   redeemable  in  the  scrip  of  the 
commissioners. 

Nearly  every  man  in  Chicago  doing  business 
was  issuing  his  individual  scrip,  and  the  city 
abounded  with  little  tickets,  such  as  "Good  at 
our  store  for  ten  cents,"  "Good  for  a  loaf  of 
bread,"  "Good  for  a  shave,"  "Good  for  a 
drink,"  etc.,  etc.  When  you  went  out  to 
trade,  the  trader  would  look  over  your  tickets, 
and  select  such  as  he  could  use  to  the  best 
advantage.  The  times  for  a  while  seemed 
very  prosperous.  We  had  a  currency  that 
was  interchangeable,  and  for  a  time  we  suf- 
fered no  inconvenience  from  it,  except  when 
we  wanted  some  specie  to  pay  for  our  postage. 
In  those  days  it  took  25  cents  to  send  a  letter 
east.  But  after  a  while  it  was  found  out  that 
men  were  over-issuing.  The  barber  had  out- 
standing too  many  shaves;  the  baker  too  many 
loaves  of  bread;  the  saloon-keeper  too  many 
drinks,  etc.,  etc.  Want  of  confidence  became 
general.  Each  man  became  afraid  to  take  the 
tickets  of  another.  Some  declined  to  redeem 
their  tickets  in  any  way,  and  some  absconded. 
And  people  found  out,  as  is  always  the  case 
where  there  is  a  redundancy  of  paper  money, 
that  they  had  been  extravagant,  had  bought 
things  they  did  not  need,  and  had  run  in  debt 
for  a  larger  amount  than  they  were  able  to  pay. 
Of  course,  nearly  everyone  failed,  and  charged 
his  failure  upon  President  Jackson's  specie 
circular.     In  after  times,  I  asked  an  old  settler, 

87 


titmm^cmtt^  of  €adti  €|)tca$o 

who  was  a  great  growler  in  those  days,  what 
effect  time  had  had  upon  his  views  of  General 
Jackson's  circular.  His  reply  was  that  General 
Jackson  had  spoiled  his  being  a  great  man. 
Said  he,  "I  came  to  Chicago  with  nothing, 
failed  for  $100,000,  and  could  have  failed  for 
a  million,  if  he  had  left  the  bubble  burst  in  the 
natural  way." 

A  single  instance  will  illustrate  to  what 
various  purposes  those  little  tickets  of  indebted- 
ness could  be  put.  A  boy  had  a  ticket  "Good 
for  a  drink."  He  dropped  it  into  the  church 
contribution-box,  and  heard  no  more  of  it. 
He  told  another  boy,  who  did  the  same  thing 
with  the  same  result.  That  boy  told  his  sister, 
who  told  her  mother,  who  told  her  husband, 
who  deemed  it  his  duty  to  tell  the  deacon. 
Meanwhile  the  boys  were  putting  in  the  tickets 
"Good  for  a  drink,"  and  telling  the  other 
boys  to  do  the  same.  The  deacon,  alive  to 
all  the  responsibilities  of  his  position,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  entered  a  saloon,  called 
the  barkeeper  one  side,  and  asked  him  to 
change  a  $i  scrip,  well  knowing  he  could  not 
do  so  unless  it  were  in  liquor-tickets.  The 
saloon-keeper  was  afraid  to  offer  such  tickets, 
and  declined  to  make  the  change,  until  the 
deacon  gave  him  a  hint  that,  although  he  did 
not  stimulate  himself,  he  thought  he  could  use 
the  tickets.  Then,  said  the  deacon,  "I  have 
a  curiosity  to  know  the  extent  of  the  circulation 
of  these  tickets,  and  really  wish  you  would 
88 


2FoJjn  l^enthjottj 


put  a  private  mark  upon  them,  and  notify  me 
when  one  returns."  Think  of  a  deacon  put- 
ting such  currency  into  a  contribution-box! 
But  he  did  it,  and  the  boys  put  in  some  more. 
On  Monday  afternoon,  the  deacon  was  notified 
that  one  of  his  tickets  had  been  redeemed. 
Oh,  what  a  chance  for  a  scandal  case !  Imagine 
that  such  a  thing  had  happened  in  our  day! 
Think  of  our  enterprising  newsgatherers  call- 
ing upon  a  deacon,  and  asking  him  what  was 
the  average  time  of  a  liquor-ticket's  going  from 
his  church  contribution-box  to  a  saloon !  With 
solemn  tread  the  deacon  made  his  way  to  his 
pastor's  residence,  and  asked  him  what  dis- 
position he  made  of  the  various  tickets  taken 
from  the  contribution-box.  The  reply  was 
that  his  wife  assorted  them,  strung  them  upon 
different  strings,  entered  them  upon  a  book, 
and  gave  the  church  credit  as  she  used  any  of 
them.  "And  do  you  say,  my  dear  brother," 
asked  the  deacon,  "that  you  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  particular  uses  to  which  these 
tickets  have  been  put?"  "I  do  say  so,"  said 
the  pastor.  The  deacon  breathed  freer.  He 
had  cleared  his  pastor,  but  I  have  no  doubt  he 
prayed,  "May  the  Lord  have  mercy  on  his 
poor  wife!"  The  wife  was  called,  and  her 
husband  said,  "The  deacon  wishes  us  to  give 
an  account  of  the  proceeds  of  the  contribution- 
box."  "Not  exactly  so,  my  dear  sister,"  said 
the  deacon;  "but  I  wish  to  know  for  what 
purposes  the  liquor-tickets  have  been  used." 


^tmini^tmtt^  of  (iBarlp  C|)icago 

She  comprehended  the  matter  at  once,  and 
promptly  replied,  "Why,  deacon,  did  you 
want  them?  I  never  thought  you  were  a 
drinking  man.  Now,  as  you  didn't  have  the 
tickets,  will  you  share  with  us  the  proceeds? 
Let  us  all  take  a  drink!"  She  rushed  to  her 
pantry,  brought  out  a  pitcher,  with  tumblers, 
and  it  was  filled  with — milk!  In  making  the 
change  with  her  milkman  his  eyes  had  fallen 
upon  these  tickets,  and  he  said  he  could  use 
them.  Thus  throwing  the  liquor-tickets  into 
the  contribution-box  was  but  a  repetition  of 
the  old  adage,  "Evil  be  thou  my  good. ' '  They 
had  discharged  all  the  function  of  the  modern 
greenback,  even  to  furnishing  a  poorly  paid 
clergyman's  children  with  milk. 

Not  long  after,  our  Chicago  citizens  were 
victimized  by  another  irredeemable  currency 
device.  Michigan  legislators  thought  that  while 
there  was  not  specie  enough  in  the  country  for 
a  banking  basis,  there  was  land  enough.  So 
they  passed  what  is  known  as  the  "Real 
Estate  Banking  Law."  They  contended  that 
real  estate  was  better  than  gold  and  silver, 
because  a  man  could  not  run  away  with  real 
estate.  Chicago  merchants,  business  men,  and 
speculators  generally,  instead  of  paying  their 
debts  with  their  money,  bought  Michigan  wild 
lands,  had  them  appraised,  and  then  mortgaged 
them  for  bills,  which  they  brought  home  to  pay 
their  debts  with.  Real  estate,  which  is  gener- 
ally the  first  property  to  feel  the  effects  of 
90 


3Fo|jn  H^mthjort!) 


inflated  currency,  soon  rose  in  value,  and  its 
owners  paid  Michigan  another  visit,  secured  a 
higher  appraisal  of  their  lands,  and  exchanged 
the  second  mortgage  for  some  bills.  For 
about  a  year  we  had  excellent  times  again 
in  Chicago.  But  then  confidence  began  to 
weaken.  Agents  were  sent  into  the  country 
to  buy  anything  they  could,  provided  Michigan 
money  would  be  taken.  Merchants  would  post 
in  their  windows  a  list  of  bills  that  they  would 
receive  for  a  given  day,  and  then  revise  the 
list  for  the  next  day.  The  bubble  soon  burst, 
and  every  one  was  the  poorer  for  the  good 
times  he  had  enjoyed.  Manual  labor,  which 
was  the  last  thing  to  rise,  was  the  last  resting- 
place  of  the  worthless  bills. 

During  all  this  excitement  incident  to  our 
great  variety  of  irredeemable  paper,  our  suffer- 
ings were  the  greatest  for  postage  money, 
which  had  always  to  be  in  specie,  and  specie 
was  then  at  from  50  to  lOO  per  cent  premium 
in  our  depreciated  currency.  But  postage 
was  then  reckoned  by  the  sheet  instead  of  by 
weight.  The  result  was  that,  although  friends 
wrote  but  seldom,  their  letters  were  a  sort  of 
daily  journal.  When  anything  occurred  to 
them,  they  would  write  it  out;  and  when  they 
had  filled  a  sheet,  oftentimes  writing  crossways 
also,  they  mailed  it  as  soon  as  they  could  raise 
the  postage.  In  traveling  at  the  East,  I  have 
fallen  in  with  several  of  these  letters  written 
in  early  times,  whose  publication  would  add 

91 


Hcmmi^cencc^  of  €atlp  Cfjicago 

materially  to  the  early  history  of  our  city.  But 
their  contents  were  so  mixed  up  with  private 
matters  appertaining  to  different  families  that 
it  is  impossible  to  obtain  possession  of  them. 
As  our  laboring  men  were  paid  in  currency,  it 
often  took  more  than  a  day's  work  to  pay  the 
postage  on  a  letter  to  an  eastern  friend. 

I  will  relate  an  anecdote  to  illustrate  this 
matter.  Soon  after  my  first  election  to  Con- 
gress, a  young  man  who  had  rendered  me 
material  service  made  me  a  call,  and  observed 
that  postage  was  very  high;  in  which  sentiment 
I  concurred,  and  promised  to  labor  to  reduce 
it.  He  then  remarked  that  I  would  have  the 
franking  privilege;  to  which  I  assented,  and 
promised  to  labor  to  abolish  it.  But  all  this 
did  not  seem  to  interest  the  young  man,  and  I 
was  perplexed  to  know  the  drift  of  his  conver- 
sation. Finally,  with  great  embarrassment,  he 
observed  that  he  was  engaged  to  a  young  lady 
at  the  East,  and  wanted  to  know  if  I  could  not 
frank  his  letters.  I  explained  that  there  was 
but  one  way  to  avoid  the  responsibilities  of  the 
law,  and  that  was  for  him  to  write  his  letters 
to  me,  and  then  I  could  write  a  letter  to  her, 
calling  her  attention  to  his;  and  she  could  have 
the  same  privilege.  The  correspondence  took 
this  form  until  the  congressman  from  her  dis- 
trict asked  me  if,  at  the  close  of  the  session,  I 
was  going  home  by  the  way  of  his  district.  I 
did  not  comprehend  him  until  he  stated  that 
he  was  well  acquainted  in  the  family  of  the 
92 


S^ofin  IBenttoortI) 


lady  with  whom  I  had  been  corresponding,  and 
suggested  that,  if  I  was  going  to  be  married 
before  the  next  session,  it  would  be  pleasant 
for  us  to  board  at  the  same  house !  This  put 
a  new  phase  upon  my  way  of  dodging  an  abuse 
of  the  franking  privilege,  and  I  wrote  to  my 
constituent  that  he  must  bring  his  courtship  to 
a  close,  and  he  did  so.  Four  letters  from  him 
and  three  from  her  covered  the  transaction, 
and  I  stand  indebted  to  this  day  to  the  ' '  con- 
science-fund" of  the  Post-Office  Department 
for  $1.75.  But  this  was  a  very  insignificant 
sum  to  pay  for  the  securing  of  a  good  Yankee 
girl  to  the  West  in  those  days.  Besides,  there 
are  seven  in  the  family  now,  and  one  went  to 
the  war;  and  that  $1.75  was  an  insignificant 
bounty  to  pay  for  a  soldier.  After  all,  the 
best  way  to  procure  soldiers  is  to  breed  them 
yourself.  But  every  time  anyone  speaks  to 
me  about  corruptions  and  defalcations  among 
public  men  of  the  present  day,  I  see  "mene, 
mene,  tekel,  upharsin"  written  on  the  wall! 
I  think  of  that  $1.75,  and  say  nothing. 

Not  satisfied  with  the  real  estate  banking 
experiment  in  Michigan,  of  trying  to  make  easy 
times  without  prompt  specie  redemption,  some 
of  the  speculators  of  Illinois  thought  that  they 
would  try  the  Michigan  system,  with  state 
bonds  substituted  for  lands.  The  result  of 
this  last  experiment  is  too  familiar  to  the  mass 
of  our  citizens  to  need  an  extended  comment. 
Money  was  borrowed,  and  the  state  bonds 
93 


^Hemmi^cence^  of  €arlp  Cljicago 

were  purchased.  The  most  inaccessible  places 
in  our  state  were  sought  out  for  the  location 
of  banks,  and  bills  were  extensively  issued. 
Money  was  abundant,  prices  of  everything 
advanced,  and  a  financial  millennium  was  once 
more  among  us.  The  consequences  of  this 
system  were  quite  as  disastrous  as  those  of  the 
real  estate  system  of  Michigan.  Considering 
its  age,  Chicago  has  been  the  greatest  sufferer 
of  any  place  in  the  world  from  an  irredeemable 
paper-money  system.  Its  losses  in  this  respect 
will  nearly  approximate  those  from  the  great 
fire.  And  when  you  talk  to  one  of  the  early 
settlers  of  Chicago  about  the  advantages  ac- 
cruing from  an  irredeemable  money  system, 
you  waste  your  labor.     He  has  been  there ! 

One  of  our  early  amusements  was  that  of 
wolf-hunting.  Experienced  Indian  ponies  were 
plenty  in  our  city.  The  last  hunt  I  remember 
had  for  its  object  the  driving  of  as  large  a 
number  of  wolves  as  possible  up  to  the  ice 
upon  the  lake  shore,  and  as  near  the  mouth  of 
the  harbor  as  could  be  done.  There  was  to 
be  no  shooting  until  the  wolves  had  got  upon 
the  ice.  No  person  was  to  fire  unless  his  aim 
was  entirely  over  ice,  and  then  to  the  eastward. 
Two  parties  started  early  in  the  morning,  one 
following  the  lake  shore  south,  and  the  other 
the  river,  to  meet  at  a  common  centre  not  far 
from  Blue  Island.  Then  they  were  to  spread 
themselves  out,  cover  as  much  territory  as 
possible,  and  drive  the  wolves  before  them. 

94 


3Foftn  l^cntUJortfj 


About  4  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  a  wolf  made 
his  appearance  in  the  outskirts  of  the  city. 
The  news  was  spread,  and  our  people  turned 
out  on  foot,  keeping  along  the  margin  of  the 
river,  so  as  to  drive  the  wolves  upon  the  ice  of 
the  lake  shore.  One  wolf  after  another  made 
his  appearance,  and  soon  we  saw  the  horsemen. 
The  number  of  wolves  was  about  the  same  as 
that  of  Samson's  foxes.  The  men  were  so 
eager  to  get  the  first  fire  at  a  wolf  that  the 
tramp  of  their  horses  broke  the  ice;  and,  as 
the  wind  was  rather  brisk,  it  broke  away  from 
the  shore,  with  the  wolves  upon  it,  and  drifted 
northeasterly,  very  much  in  the  same  direction 
as  that  taken  by  the  recent  unfortunate  balloon. 
But  the  wolves,  unlike  the  man  in  the  balloon, 
took  no  reporter  on  board.  Men,  women,  and 
children  lined  the  bank  of  the  lake,  expecting 
to  see  the  ice  break  in  pieces  and  the  wolves 
swim  ashore.  But  it  did  not  do  so.  Our 
people  watched  the  ice,  and  could  see  the 
wolves  running  from  side  to  side,  until  they 
faded  away  from  view.  When  I  took  my  last 
look,  they  appeared  about  the  size  of  mice. 

About  two  weeks  afterwards,  a  letter  ap- 
peared in  a  Detroit  paper  containing  an 
account  of  some  farm  settlements,  on  the  east- 
ern shore  of  Lake  Michigan,  being  attacked 
by  a  large  body  of  hungry  wolves.  They 
destroyed  fowls  and  cattle,  and  for  several 
days  spread  terror  through  the  neighborhood. 
We    always    supposed    that   those   were   our 

95 


^Hcmhtiiefcence^  of  <Sarlp  Cjjicago 

wolves,  but  our  hunters  never  laid  any  claim 
to  them,  as  the  news  of  their  arrival  was  so 
long  in  reaching  here.  And,  as  an  evidence  of 
the  tardy  transit  of  merchandise  and  mails  in 
those  days,  I  will  state  that  our  newspapers  of 
September,  1835,  announce  the  arrival  of  a 
schooner,  with  goods,  twenty  days  from  New 
York  City,  the  shortest  time  ever  made.  A 
newspaper  of  December  24,  1836,  announces 
that  President  Jackson's  message  to  Congress 
was  only  twelve  days  on  its  route  from  Wash- 
ington. It  was  published  here  Saturday,  but 
the  editor  says  he  would  have  issued  it  on 
Thursday,  but  for  the  extreme  cold  weather. 

The  first  divorce  suit  in  our  city  was  brought 
in  1835. 

Land  speculation  had  become  so  brisk  here 
in  1835,  that  from  January  4th  to  October 
2 1st  of  that  year  the  papers  announce  that 
Augustus  Garrett  (afterward  mayor  of  the  city) 
had  sold  land  at  his  auction-rooms  to  the 
amount  of  $1,800,000.  Our  people  had  com- 
menced litigation  so  much  that  at  the  com- 
mencement of  Cook  County  circuit  court  in 
May,  1836,  there  were  230  cases  on  the  civil 
docket,  and  the  court  sat  two  weeks.  Litigation 
so  increased  that  in  May,  1837,  there  were  700 
cases  on  the  civil  docket.  The  newspapers 
pointed  to  the  alarming  fact  that  over  a  million 
dollars  were  involved  in  these  cases. 

The  West  Side  was  the  last  to  advance  in 
population.  Although  at  one  time,  prior  to 
96 


3Foftn  l©mttDortf) 


the  city's  incorporation,  it  undoubtedly  had,  as 
it  does  now,  the  largest  portion  of  our  inhabit- 
ants, there  were  only  97  voters  on  the  whole 
West  Side  at  our  first  municipal  election. 
These  were  mostly  from  our  first  families,  as 
there  were  living  there  about  that  time  three 
Indian  chiefs,  Sauganash,  Laframboise,  and 
Robinson  (whose  Indian  name  was  Che-che- 
pin-gua),  with  occasional  visits  from  Shaboneh; 
and  any  number  of  Indians,  French,  and  mixed 
breeds  related  to  them.  The  West  Side  was 
the  last  side  to  have  a  piano,  but  the  strains 
of  the  fiddle  were  always  to  be  heard,  and  the 
war-dance  was  no  uncommon  thing.  I  re- 
member attending  the  wedding  of  one  of 
Laframboise's  daughters.  She  was  married  to 
a  clerk  in  the  post  office,  and  is  now  the  wife 
of  Medard  B.  Beaubien,  heretofore  alluded  to 
in  this  lecture.  The  clerk  was  the  one  who  de- 
livered letters,  and  of  course  was  well  known  to 
all  our  citizens,  and  was  remarkably  popular. 
He  went  to  the  printing  office  and  had  fifty  cards 
of  invitation  struck  off.  But  when  people  went 
for  their  letters,  they  politely  hinted  that  they 
expected  a  card  of  invitation  to  the  wedding. 
So  he  was  compelled  to  go  to  the  printing 
office  and  have  fifty  more  struck  off.  These 
did  not  last  long,  and  he  had  one  hundred  more. 
Then  he  said  that  tickets  were  of  no  use,  and 
everybody  might  come;  and  about  everyone  did 
come .  The  ceremony  was  performed  by  Rever- 
end Isaac  W.  Hallam,  pastor  of  the  St.  James 

97 


Memmi^trntt^  of  €arlp  Cfjicago 

Episcopal  Church  of  this  city.  Everything 
was  high-toned,  well  worthy  of  an  Indian  chief's 
daughter.  The  house  was  of  no  particular 
use,  as  it  was  full  and  surrounded  with  people. 
This  wedding  made  a  strong  impression  on  my 
mind,  as  it  was  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  the 
Indian  war  dance.  Some  of  the  guests  not 
only  had  their  tomahawks  and  scalping-knives, 
bows  and  arrows,  but  a  few  of  them  had  real 
scalps,  which  they  pretended  they  had  taken  in 
the  various  Indian  wars.  Their  faces  were 
decorated  with  all  the  favorite  pictures  of  the 
Indians.  And  some  of  our  young  white  men 
and  ladies  played  the  part  of  the  Indian  so  well 
that  it  was  difficult  to  distinguish  them  from 
the  real  ones.  It  has  been  a  wonder  to  me 
that,  while  our  professors  of  music  have  been 
inventing  so  many  different  kinds  of  dances, 
none  of  them  have  reproduced  the  Indian  war 
dance,  which  to  me  is  much  more  sensible 
than  nine  tenths  of  those  which  are  now 
practiced  at  so  many  of  our  fashionable  parties. 
I  presume  that  the  trouble  is,  that  our  ladies 
consider  that  the  Indian  war  paint  extemporized 
for  the  occasion  would  interfere  with  the 
original  paint  put  on  before  they  left  their 
homes,  and  which  they  wished  to  remain  through 
the  evening.  One  of  our  young  men  claimed 
that,  at  this  wedding,  amid  the  crowd,  unper- 
ceived,  he  had  clipped  a  lock  from  the  bride's 
long,  flowing,  raven  hair.  Some  of  this  hair 
he  had  put  into  a  breastpin,  and  very  soon 
98 


5Fol)n  Wmmnttf^ 


thereafter,  these  Indian  bridal  breastpins  were 
about  as  thick  as  were  the  manufactures  from 
our  old  court-house  bell  after  the  fire.  One 
man  who  had  worn  one  for  some  years  was 
suddenly  taken  sick,  and  expected  to  die.  He 
called  his  wife  to  his  bedside,  and  told  her  he 
deemed  it  his  duty  to  state  to  her  that  he  had 
been  deceiving  her  for  years,  and  he  could  not 
die  in  peace  until  he  had  made  a  confession. 
"I  must  tell  you  before  I  die,  that  the  hair  in 
that  pin  I  have  been  wearing  so  deceitfully  is 
not  the  hair  of  that  Indian  chief's  daughter, 
but  your  own."  With  pitiful  eyes  he  looked 
to  his  wife  for  forgiveness.  "And  is  that  all 
that  troubles  you  ? ' '  said  she ;  ' '  what  you  have 
just  revealed  in  your  dying  hour  only  confirms 
my  opinion  of  you.  I  always  supposed  you 
thought  more  of  me  than  you  did  of  a  squaw!" 
And  now  I  suppose  you  think  that  that  man 
died  in  peace.  But  he  did  not.  He  is  alive 
now.  There  is  occasionally  an  instance  where 
a  man  has  survived  a  confession  to  his  wife. 
But  where,  oh  where,  is  there  an  instance  of 
a  woman  who  has  survived  a  confession  to 
her  husband  ? 

After  the  marriage  of  this  Indian  chief's 
daughter,  several  of  our  wealthy  citizens  (wealthy 
for  those  days)  gave  return  parties.  I  remember 
attending  a  very  elegant  one  given  at  the  house 
of  Medard  B.  Beaubien.  I  think  the  fashion- 
able society  of  Chicago  subsisted  for  about 
two  months  upon  that  wedding.     Mr.  Beaubien 

99 


Memm^tmtt^  of  <6arlp  Cf^icago 

has  given  me  several  invitations,  as  he  has 
others  of  our  old  settlers,  to  visit  him  at  his 
residence  among  the  Pottawatomies.  He  told 
me  that  I  would  be  a  big  Pottawatomie!  He 
gave  as  a  reason  for  abandoning  Chicago, 
where  he  was  a  merchant,  that  he  would  rather 
be  a  big  Indian  than  a  little  white  man.  He 
has  the  reputation  of  being  the  handsomest 
man  that  was  ever  in  this  city.  I  met  him  at 
Washington,  a  few  years  ago,  and  he  attracted 
great  attention  for  his  remarkable  personal 
beauty. 

The  most  of  the  families  of  wealth,  educa- 
tion, and  high  social  position,  about  the  time 
of  our  incorporation,  were  settled  on  the  North 
Side.  The  "Lake  House"  there  was  the  first 
brick  hotel  constructed  in  our  city,  and  it  was 
as  well  furnished  and  conducted  as  any  hotel 
west  of  New  York  City.  Upon  the  South  Side 
were  most  of  the  business  houses  and  hotels 
that  were  kept  for  the  accommodation  of 
farmers  who  came  to  Chicago  with  their  loads 
of  grain.  Business  men  without  families, 
clerks,  and  employes  of  business  men  generally 
boarded  at  these  hotels  on  the  South  Side, 
often  sleeping  in  the  stores.  We  could  not 
have  anything  like  a  large  party  on  the  South 
Side  without  female  domestics.  The  fashion- 
able people  on  the  North  Side  would  invite  our 
young  men  to  their  parties  on  that  side;  but 
when  we  had  a  party  on  the  South  Side,  instead 
of  coming  themselves,  the  ladies  would  send 

100 


5Foljn  H^enttDortf) 


their  domestics.  And  if  I  were  to  go  into 
details  of  the  origin  of  the  fashionable  society 
of  Chicago  of  the  present  day,  I  could  satisfy 
our  young  men  that,  whether  they  wanted  to 
make  money  or  raise  healthy  children,  the  best 
thing  they  could  now  do  would  be  to  imitate 
the  example  of  some  of  our  early  settlers,  and 
marry  a  lady  who  dares  discharge  an  impudent 
or  incompetent  maid,  and  can  do  the  work  her- 
self till  she  can  get  a  better  one. 

There  was  considerable  ill-feeling  at  one 
time  between  the  North  and  South  sides  in 
consequence  of  this  discrimination.  But  poli- 
tics then,  as  now,  proved  a  great  leveler  in 
society.  There  was  an  elegant  party  given  at 
the  Lake  House  one  evening,  where  one  of  the 
most  fashionable  men  of  the  North  Side,  who 
was  a  candidate  for  office,  thought  he  would 
throw  an  anchor  to  the  windward  by  dancing 
with  a  South  Side  dressing-maid,  while  he 
supposed  his  wife  was  being  entertained  at  the 
supper  table.  But  she  entered  the  ball-room 
while  the  dance  was  going  on.  At  once  a 
proud  heart  was  fired.  Quicker  than  thought 
she  spoke  to  a  carriage  driver  who  stood  at 
the  door  looking  in:  '  'Can  you  dance,  Mike? ' ' 
"It's  only  for  the  want  of  a  partner,"  was  the 
response.  Seizing  him  by  the  hand,  she  said, 
'  'Come  on ! "  and  turning  to  the  crowd  she  said, 
"This  is  a  game  that  two  can  play  at!"  and 
immediately  the  dance  went  on,  amid  the 
applause  of  the  whole  room;  the  man  with  the 

lOI 


Mtmini^tmtt^  of  €arlp  Cljicago 

South  Side  dressing-maid,  and  his  wife  with 
the  South  Side  driver.  And  thus  free  suffrage 
began  its  work  against  artificial  social  position. 
Not  long  after  my  first  election  to  Congress, 
upon  opening  my  mail  at  Washington,  I  found 
a  letter  dated  in  the  western  part  of  Iowa, 
then  far  in  the  wilderness,  reading  in  this  way: 

My  Dear  Old  Chicago  Friend:  I  see  you 
have  been  getting  up  in  the  world,  and  it  is  so  with 
myself,  who  am  the  sheriff's  deputy  here,  and  I  also 
keep  hotel.  I  am  the  same  one  who  made  all  the  fuss 
dancing  with  the  lady  at  the  Lake  House  ball,  and 
you  were  there ;  and  the  girl  I  married  is  the  same 
domestic  her  husband  danced  with.  The  judge  of 
the  court  boards  at  our  house,  and  he  often  dances 
with  my  wife  at  the  big  parties  here,  where  we  are 
considered  among  the  first  folks,  and  I  reckon  my 
wife  Bridget  would  put  on  as  many  airs  as  the  lady 
did  at  the  Lake  House,  if  she  should  catch  me  danc- 
ing with  domestics.  I  found  out  that  those  people 
who  made  so  much  fuss  at  the  Lake  House  were  not 
considered  much  where  they  came  from.  But  they 
emigrated  to  Chicago,  and  then  set  up  for  big 
folks.  So  I  thought  I  would  marry  Bridget  and 
start  for  a  new  country  where  I  could  be  as  big  as 
anybody.  And  now  remember  your  old  Chicago 
friend,  and  tell  the  President  I  am  for  his  adminis- 
tration, and  would  like  to  get  the  post-oflSce  here. 

I  remember  that,  during  that  session  of 
Congress,  I  boarded  at  the  same  house  with 
Horace  Greeley,  and  he  was  frequently  in  my 
room;  and  I  think  that  it  was  from  this  letter 
he  borrowed  his  sentiment,  "Go  west,  young 
man!" 

In  our    early  times,   it  was  customary  to 

102 


5Fofjn  IBenttDortf) 


excommunicate  members  of  the  church  as  pub- 
licly as  they  had  been  admitted.  Now  we 
hear  admissions,  but  never  of  excommunica- 
tions. Professor  David  Swing  has  come  as 
near  filling  that  bill  as  anyone  we  have  heard 
of  recently,  but  future  historians  will  differ  as 
to  whether  he  excommunicated  the  church  or 
the  church  him.  I  remember  in  early  times 
here  of  a  clergyman's  dealing,  at  the  close  of 
his  service,  with  a  member,  one  of  our  well- 
known  citizens,  somewhat  after  this  fashion: 
"You  will  remember,  my  hearers,  that  some 
time  ago  Mr.  Blank  was  proposed  for  admission 
to  this  church,  and  after  he  had  passed  a 
favorable  examination  I  called  upon  everyone 
present  to  know  if  there  was  any  objection, 
and  no  one  rose  and  objected.  It  becomes 
my  painful  duty  now  to  pronounce  the  sentence 
of  excommunication  upon  him,  and  to  remand 
him  back  to  the  world  again  with  all  his  sins 
upon  his  head."  Whereupon  a  gentleman 
rose  in  his  pew  and  said:  "And  now  the  world 
objects  to  receiving  him!  "  On  which  bursts 
of  laughter  filled  the  house;  and  the  precise 
status  of  that  man  was  never  determined,  as 
the  civil  courts  in  those  days  had  not  begun  to 
interfere  in  ecclesiastical  matters.  In  these 
times  the  church  would  undoubtedly  have  called 
upon  the  courts  to  grant  a  mandamus  upon 
the  world  to  receive  him,  or  the  world  would 
have  applied  for  an  injunction  to  prevent  the 
church  from  excommunicating  him. 

103 


"^tmm^tmtt^  of  <6arip  Cfjicago 

In  most  new  settlements  there  can  always 
be  pointed  out  some  particular  class  who  give 
tone  to  the  early  society ;  such  as  the  Pilgrims 
and  Puritans  of  New  England,  the  Knicker- 
bockers of  New  York,  the  Huguenots  of  South 
Carolina,  the  Creoles  of  New  Orleans;  and, 
in  the  later  days,  men  identified  with  manu- 
facturing interests,  mining  interests,  railroad 
interests,  or  with  seminaries  of  learning.  But 
here  in  Chicago,  in  early  times,  we  had  not 
any  one  prevailing  class  or  interest ;  nor  was 
there  any  sufificient  number  of  people  from 
any  particular  locality  to  exercise  a  controlling 
influence  in  molding  public  sentiment.  We 
had  people  from  almost  every  clime,  and  of 
almost  every  opinion.  We  had  Jews  and 
Christians,  Protestants,  CathoHcs,  and  infidels; 
among  Protestants,  there  were  Calvinists  and 
Armenians.  Nearly  every  language  was  repre- 
sented here.  Some  people  had  seen  much  of 
the  world,  and  some  very  httle.  Some  were 
quite  learned,  and  some  very  ignorant.  We 
had  every  variety  of  people,  and  out  of  these 
we  had  to  construct  what  is  called  society. 
The  winters  were  long;  no  railroads,  no  tele- 
graphs, no  canal,  and  all  we  had  to  rely  upon 
for  news  were  our  weekly  newspapers.  We 
had  no  libraries,  no  lectures,  no  theatres  or 
other  places  of  amusement.  If  a  stranger 
attended  a  gathering  of  any  kind,  the  mass  of 
attendants  were  equally  strangers  with  himself; 
and  the  gentlemen  outnumbered  the  ladies  by 
104 


3FoJ)n  l^enttDort]^ 


about  four  or  five  to  one.  You  ask  what  society 
lived  upon  in  those  days?  I  answer,  upon 
faith.  But  faith  without  works  is  dead.  From 
the  close  to  the  opening  of  navigation,  nearly 
six  months  in  the  year,  we  had  nothing  to  do. 
Our  faith  consisted  principally  in  the  future  of 
Chicago.  Nearly  everyone  had  laid  out  a 
town,  and  men  exchanged  lots  with  each  other, 
very  much  as  boys  swap  jack-knives.  The 
greatest  story-teller  was  about  as  big  a  man  as 
we  had.  If  a  new  story  was  told,  it  was  soon 
passed  all  round  town,  and  due  credit  given  to 
the  originator.  If  a  new  book  appeared  in  our 
midst,  that  was  loaned  around  until  another 
new  one  came  to  take  its  place.  Occasionally, 
one  of  our  young  men  would  go  east  and  get 
him  a  wife,  and  then  we  discussed  her  for  a 
while.  Dressmakers  would  invariably  make 
her  the  first  call,  examine  her  dresses,  and  then 
go  from  door  to  door,  like  a  modern  census- 
taker  or  tax-collector,  soHciting  orders  according 
to  the  latest  fashions. 

There  was  great  prejudice  between  the  emi- 
grants from  the  South  and  those  from  the  East. 
All  our  eastern  people  were  considered  by  the 
emigrants  from  the  South  as  Yankees.  The 
first  contest  was  about  the  convention  system 
in  politics.  Southerners  denounced  it  vehe- 
mently as  a  Yankee  innovation  upon  the  old 
system  of  allowing  every  man  to  run  for  office 
who  wanted  to  do  so,  and  taking  his  chances. 
Their  system  was  to  solicit  their  friends  to 
105 


Memm^tmtt^  of  €arlp  Cfjicago 

solicit  them  to  run  for  office,  and  then  they 
reluctantly  consented,  and  placed  themselves 
in  the  hands  of  their  friends.  All  Yankee 
customs,  fashions,  and  innovations  upon  their 
established  usages  were  ridiculed  as  Yankee 
notions,  worthy  only  of  the  peddlers  of  wooden 
clocks  and  pewter  spoons. 

Thomas  Ford,  born  in  Uniontown,  Pennsyl- 
vania, in  1800,  who  had  lived  in  Illinois  from 
1804,  and  whose  father  had  been  killed  by  the 
Indians,  came  here  as  judge,  and  did  more 
than  any  other  person  to  mollify  the  prejudices 
of  the  South  against  the  North.  He  early 
foresaw  that  all  that  the  early  settlers  of  Illinois 
needed  was  the  growth  of  more  Yankee  thrift 
among  them;  and  he  early  told  his  friends  that 
while  he  stayed  here  he  was  going  to  conform 
to  all  the  Yankee  notions,  as  fast  as  he  could 
ascertain  what  they  were,  and  wanted  his 
acquaintances  to  inform  him  what  he  should  do 
to  prevent  embarrassment  by  non-conformity. 
I  met  him  on  his  way  to  court  one  morning, 
and  he  said  he  had  just  been  detained  by  a  lady 
complaining  that  he  did  not  attend  her  party  on 
a  previous  evening.  He  told  her  that  he  was 
very  fond  of  parties,  and  always  attended  them 
whenever  he  could,  but  that  he  held  court  that 
evening  until  it  was  too  late  to  go.  But  this 
did  not  satisfy  her.  She  wanted  to  know,  if  he 
could  not  attend,  why  he  did  not  send  a  "regret." 
He  did  not  understand  the  matter,  and  made  an 
excuse  that  the  court  was  waiting,  informing 
106 


S^oJjn  fBentttJortJ 


her  that  he  would  converse  with  her  some  other 
time.  "But, "said  he,  "what's that?  What 
did  she  want  me  to  do  when  I  couldn't  go? " 
I  informed  him  that  the  lady  had  some  sisters 
visiting  her  from  the  East,  and  she  had  a  pride 
in  having  them  write  home  that  among  her 
friends  were  the  very  best  people  in  Chicago, 
and  among  them  the  judge  of  the  court;  which 
in  his  absence,  a  little  note  from  him  would 
establish.  "Capital,  capital,"  said  he.  "Why, 
you  Yankees  have  a  motive  in  all  you  do.  You 
turn  everything  to  account.  The  longer  I  live 
among  Yankees  the  more  I  see  why  it  is  they 
are  getting  rich  and  overrunning  the  country. 
Nobody  shall  complain  of  me  hereafter  in  that 
respect.  I'll  have  some  note-paper  in  my  desk, 
and  if  the  lawyers  detain  me,  I'll  send  the 
sheriff  with  one  of  those  little  billet-doux.  If 
there  is  any  other  thing  that  you  Yankees  want 
me  to  do  to  testify  my  high  appreciation  of  you, 
please  let  me  know."  The  next  day  the  Judge 
called  at  my  office  with  a  beautiful  little  note, 
on  gilt-edged  paper  addressed  to  his  wife,  and 
reading  as  follows :  ' '  Judge  Ford's  compliments 
to  Mrs.  Ford  and  the  children,  and  regrets  that 
he  cannot  be  home  to  have  the  pleasure  of 
their  society  on  Monday  next."  Below  this 
was  the  following  postscript:  "The  above  is 
one  of  the  Yankee  notions,  and  when  you  want 
to  go  anywhere  and  cannot,  you  must  always 
send  one  of  these,  which  they  call  a  'regret.' 
Please  tell  this  to  the  neighbors,  and  also  tell 
107 


^emmi^ccnce^  of  €arlp  Cfjicago 

them  that  when  I  return  I  shall  have  a  great 
many  stories  to  tell  them  about  different  Yankee 
notions." 

Not  long  after,  I  was  at  Oregon,  Ogle 
County,  where  he  resided,  and  where  he  was 
then  holding  court.  When  it  became  time 
for  the  sheriff  to  adjourn  the  court,  the  Judge 
said,  "Mr.  Sheriff,  don't  forget  that  party  at 
my  house  tonight."  And  the  sheriff  ex- 
claimed, "Hear  ye!  Hear  ye  I  The  Judge  of 
this  Court  requests  me  to  say,  that  he  and  his 
lady  would  be  pleased  to  see  you  all  at  his 
house  tonight,  both  citizens  and  strangers! 
Now  this  honorable  Court  stands  adjourned 
until  tomorrow  morning  at  9  o'clock."  It 
was  wonderful  to  notice  the  mixture  of  people 
who  unceremoniously  visited  him  that  evening 
— attorneys,  jurors,  suitors,  and  citizens  gener- 
ally, with  their  wives.  One  person  seemed  as 
much  at  home  as  another.  There  was  a  grand 
welcome  for  all.  He  was  the  very  prince  of 
hospitality.  His  small  house  could  not  contain 
the  crowd,  and  many  stood  outside  and  mingled 
in  the  entertainments.  The  Judge  passed 
through  the  assembly  with  a  waiter  on  which 
was  a  decanter  of  Madeira  wine,  and  wine- 
glasses. His  wife  passed  around  with  another 
waiter  loaded  with  cake.  Said  the  Judge  to 
some  Yankee  gentlemen,  "This  is  the  way  we 
original  lUinoisans  give  a  party.  We  invite 
all;  the  latchstring  is  out;  all  come  who  can, 
and  those  who  cannot  come  say  nothing, 
108 


5Fol)n  l©enttDort|> 


They  never  write  any  'regret.'  Indeed,  a 
great  many  of  our  prominent  men  at  the  South 
could  not  do  it.  I  have  known  men  in  our 
legislature  who  could  not  write."  Then  he 
passed  away  into  a  group  of  people  who  were 
natives  of  the  South,  and  told  them  how  he 
got  himself  into  trouble  with  a  Chicago  lady 
by  not  writing  her  a  little  billet-doux  explaining 
to  her  why  he  did  not  go  to  her  party,  when 
he  wanted  to  go  more  than  she  wanted  to  have 
him.  He  often  uttered  the  sentiment  that  he 
did  not  wish  to  live  in  a  locality  where  his 
house  was  not  large  enough  to  entertain  his 
neighbors  without  making  selections.  He  said 
he  must  either  build  him  a  larger  house  or 
move  into  a  distant  settlement.  When  I  came 
away  I  expressed  the  wish  that  I  might  soon 
have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  and  his  neigh- 
bors in  Chicago.  Whereupon  the  Judge 
jocosely  observed,  "We  will  either  come  and  see 
you  or  send  you  a  billet-doux."  But  a  South- 
ern Illinoisan,  a  native  of  North  Carolina, 
exclaimed,  "Yes,  when  you  Yankee  peddlers 
are  putting  up  wooden  clocks  and  pewter 
spoons  for  this  region,  tell  them  to  put  up  a 
little  gold-edged  note-paper  for  us,  and  have 
them  to  be  sure  that  the  gold  isn't  bronze!" 
But  the  people  of  this  state  settled  the  house 
question  for  Judge  Ford.  For,  at  the  next 
gubernatorial  election,  he  was  made  its  chief 
magistrate,  and  as  governor  he  rendered  his 
name  dear  to  every  Illinoisan  by  his  almost 
109 


Iflcmimjefcence^  of  oBarlp  Cl^icago 

superhuman,  but  eminently  successful,  efforts 
to  complete  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal, 
and  to  restore  the  lost  credit  of  our  state.  He 
died  not  long  after  the  expiration  of  his  term 
of  office,  and  he  left  to  his  children  only  the 
proceeds  of  the  copyright  of  his  History  of 
Illinois — a  book  which,  when  once  com- 
menced, no  reader  will  lay  aside  until  he  has 
finished  it.  In  this  work  is  the  only  authori- 
tative history  of  the  settlement  of  the  Mormons 
in  this  state,  and  their  final  expulsion  from  it, 
with  the  assassination  of  their  leader,  Joseph 
Smith.  In  his  preface  he  says:  "The  author 
has  written  about  small  events  and  little  men. 
And  in  all  those  matters  in  which  the  author 
has  figured  personally,  it  will  be  some  relief  to 
the  reader  to  find  that  he  has  not  attempted  to 
blow  himself  up  into  a  great  man." 

One  of  our  most  reliable  places  of  entertain- 
ment was  the  post  office  while  the  mail  was 
being  opened.  The  post  office  was  on  the 
west  side  of  Franklin  Street,  cornering  on 
South  Water  Street.  The  mail  coach  was 
irregular  in  the  time  of  its  arrival,  but  the  horn 
of  the  driver  announced  its  approach.  Then 
the  people  would  largely  assemble  at  the  post 
office,  and  wait  for  the  opening  of  the  mails, 
which  at  times  were  very  heavy.  The  post- 
master would  throw  out  a  New  York  paper, 
and  some  gentleman  with  a  good  pair  of  lungs 
and  a  jocose  temperament  would  mount  a  dry- 
goods  box  and  commence  reading.  Occasion- 
no 


3Fol)tt  ISenttDortj) 


ally  I  occupied  that  position  myself.  During 
exciting  times,  our  leading  men  would  invari- 
ably go  to  the  post  ofl&ce  themselves,  instead 
of  sending  their  employes.  The  news  would 
be  discussed  by  the  assemblage,  and  oftentimes 
heavy  bets  would  be  made  and  angiy  words 
passed.  If  it  was  election  times,  tbere  would 
be  two  papers  thrown  out,  of  opposite  politics, 
two  reading  stands  established,  two  readers 
engaged,  and  the  men  of  each  party  would 
assemble  around  their  own  reader.  This  con- 
dition of  things  would  last  until  the  mails  were 
opened,  when  the  gathering  would  adjourn 
until  the  next  blowing  of  the  driver's  horn. 
This  gathering  afforded  the  best  opportunity 
for  citizens  to  become  acquainted  one  with 
another. 

On  one  of  these  occasions,  I  was  introduced 
to  a  lieutenant  in  the  army  who  had  just  come 
to  take  charge  of  the  government  works  in 
this  city.  He  had  great  confidence  in  our 
future,  and  expressed  his  intention  to  invest  all 
his  means  here.  He  was  eventually  ordered 
away  to  some  other  station,  but  kept  up  his 
interest  in  Chicago.  His  taxes  became  high, 
too  high  in  proportion  to  his  pay  as  an  army 
officer  and  the  support  of  his  family.  His 
wife  had  once  placed  the  price  of  a  new  dress 
in  a  letter  which  was  to  leave  by  the  return  of 
a  mail  which  brought  her  husband  an  exorbi- 
tant tax  bill.  He  expressed  his  intention  of 
ordering,  by   the  same  mail,  the  sale  of  his 


titmrm^ttntt^  of  €arlp  Cljicago 

Chicago  property,  as  his  means  could  endure 
his  taxes  no  longer.  His  wife  ordered  her 
letter  from  the  mail,  took  out  the  money,  and, 
saying  that  she  preferred  the  Chicago  property 
to  a  new  dress,  insisted  that  he  should  use  it 
to  pay  his  Chicago  taxes.  The  next  summer 
he  visited  our  city,  and  rented  his  property  for 
enough  to  pay  the  taxes.  That  lady  lost  her 
dress  for  that  year,  but  she  gained  thereby  one 
of  the  largest  and  most  celebrated  (Kingsbury) 
estates  in  our  city.  I  mention  this  fact  to 
warn  our  ladies  that  they  should  never  ask  for 
a  new  dress  until  they  find  their  husband's 
tax  receipt  in  his  wallet;  and,  at  the  same  time, 
I  would  caution  husbands  not  to  try  to  carry 
so  much  real  estate  as  to  make  their  poorly 
clad  wives  and  children  objects  of  charity  when 
they  make  their  appearance  in  the  streets. 

Our  early  settlers  were  distinguished  for 
their  liberal  patronage  of  all  religious  denom- 
inations, and  we  had  one  clergyman  who  cre- 
ated as  much  sensation  as  any  we  have  had 
since  his  day.  Like  all  really  influential  sen- 
sational preachers,  he  was  an  original.  He 
dealt  freely  in  pathos  and  in  ridicule.  If  we 
cried  once  we  were  sure  to  laugh  once,  in  every 
sermon.  Unlike  clergymen  now  called  sensa- 
tional, he  never  quoted  poetry,  nor  told  anec- 
dotes, nor  used  slang  phrases  for  the  purpose 
of  creating  a  laugh.  There  was  nothing  second- 
handed  about  him.  I  allude  to  Rev.  Isaac  T. 
Hinton,   a   Baptist  clergyman,   who  was  the 

112 


5Fo|jn  l^enttoortf) 


only  settled  minister  on  the  South  Side  when 
I  came  here  in  1836.  His  residence  was  near 
the  corner  of  Van  Buren  Street  and  Fifth 
Avenue,  then  in  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  and 
was  shaded  by  native  oaks.  He  was  a  man 
who  never  seemed  so  happy  as  when  he  was 
immersing  converted  sinners  in  our  frozen  river 
or  lake.  It  is  said  of  his  converts  that  no  one 
of  them  was  ever  known  to  be  a  backslider. 
If  you  could  see  the  cakes  of  ice  that  were 
raked  out  to  make  room  for  baptismal  purposes, 
you  would  make  up  your  mind  that  no  man 
would  join  a  church  under  such  circumstances 
unless  he  joined  to  stay.  Immersions  were  no 
uncommon  thing  in  those  days.  One  cold  day, 
about  the  first  part  of  February,  1839,  there 
were  17  immersed  in  the  river  at  the  foot  of 
State  Street.  A  hole  about  20  feet  square  was 
cut  through  the  ice,  and  a  platform  was  sunk, 
with  one  end  resting  upon  the  shore.  Among 
the  17  was  our  well-known  architect,  John  M, 
Van  Osdell,  alderman-elect,  said  to  be  now  the 
only  survivor.  There  are  many  now  living 
who  were  baptized  by  Mr.  Hinton;  among 
them  is  the  wife  of  Hon.  Thomas  Hoyne, 
mayor-elect.  But  recently  our  Baptist  friends 
have  made  up  their  minds  that  our  lake  has 
enough  to  do  to  carry  away  all  the  sewerage 
of  the  city,  without  washing  off  the  sins  of  the 
people.  It  is  also  claimed  for  Mr.  Hinton 
that  no  couple  he  married  was  ever  divorced. 
He  was  just  as  careful  in  marrying  as  he 
"3 


I!temmi^cenc0^  of  €arlp  Cifticago 

was  in  baptizing;  he  wanted  nobody  to  fall 
from  grace. 

It  was  the  custom  in  those  days  to  give 
clergymen  donation  parties.  Now,  we  have 
surprise  parties,  where  the  lady  is  expected  to 
endanger  her  health  by  hard  working  all  day 
in  order  to  prepare  her  house  for  a  surprise  in 
the  evening.  The  only  surprise  about  them  is 
the  magnificence  of  the  preparations.  Then 
the  party  was  advertised  in  the  newspapers, 
and  a  notice  posted  in  the  vestibule  of  the 
church. 

It  was  customary  in  those  days  for  all  denom- 
inations to  patronize  liberally  the  clergymen  of 
other  denominations. 

Mr.  Hinton  had  a  family  of  children  nearly 
grown  up,  and  consequently  all  the  young 
people,  as  well  as  the  old,  would  be  there  to 
have  a  grand  frolic  at  his  donation  party. 
There  were  no  religious  services,  and  the  house 
was  completely  taken  possession  of  by  the 
multitude.  People  would  send  just  what  they 
happened  to  have,  and  it  would  look  at  times 
as  if  Parson  Hinton  was  going  into  the  storage 
business.  Cords  of  wood  would  be  piled  be- 
fore the  door;  flour,  salt,  pork,  beef,  box- 
raisins,  lemons,  oranges,  herring,  dry  goods, 
anything  and  everything.  After  the  donation 
party  was  over,  there  was  always  a  large 
quantity  left  which  he  did  not  need,  but  he 
knew  exactly  where  to  place  it — among  the 
destitute  of  the  city.  Probably  no  occasions 
114 


3Fol)n  IBcnttDortfj 


are  remembered  with  more  pleasure  by  the  old 
settlers  of  this  city  than  those  gatherings  at 
the  hospitable  mansion  of  the  jolly  English 
preacher,  with  his  attractive  laugh,  who  always 
enjoyed  a  good  story  and  could  generally  tell 
a  better  one.  There  are  many  married  couples 
in  this  city  who  will  tell  you  that  there  was 
where  they  first  met. 

The  first  Sabbath  I  passed  in  this  city,  my 
good  boarding-house  mistress  (Mrs.  John 
Murphy,  present  on  this  platform  to-day)  took 
me  with  her  to  his  church,  as  was  the  custom 
of  Christian  ladies  with  strange  young  men  in 
those  days.  He  told  me  that  godliness  was 
profitable  unto  all  things;  and  he  was  right. 
Christian  men  and  women  have  not  kept  up 
this  good  old  custom  of  taking  young  men, 
strangers  in  the  city,  to  church  with  them,  and 
using  their  efforts  to  lead  them  to  a  high 
social  position  with  their  religious  instruction. 
Strange  young  men  now  in  this  city  are  told 
that  there  is  a  moral  infirmary  opened  here, 
entirely  for  their  benefit,  where  the  seats  are 
all  free,  and  men  are  supported  expressly  to 
save  such  as  they  are  from  destruction.  I 
never  knew  a  young  man  to  amount  to  any- 
thing if  he  had  no  respect  for  his  social  posi- 
tion; and  that  position  can  never  be  attained 
where  young  men  are  turned  away  for  religious 
instruction  to  places  to  visit  which  they  would 
not  think  of  inviting  a  young  lady  to  leave  a 
respectable  church  to  accompany  them.     All 

115 


JflemmiiEfcencc^  of  €atlp  Cljicago 

honor  to  those  clergymen  and  Christians  of 
Chicago  who  have  their  weekly  church  sociables, 
where  young  men  are  brought  forward  into  re- 
spectable social  intercourse,  as  well  as  moral 
development.  The  celebrated  Indian  chief. 
Black  Hawk,  covered  the  whole  ground  when 
he  said  to  General  Jackson,  "You  are  a  man, 
and  I  am  another!" 

Not  feeling  able  to  sustain  the  expense  of  a 
whole  pew,  I  engaged  one  in  partnership  with 
an  unpretending  saddle  and  harness  maker 
(S.  B.  Cobb),  who,  by  a  life  of  industry,  econ- 
omy, and  morality,  has  accumulated  one  of 
the  largest  fortunes  in  our  city,  and  still  walks 
our  streets  with  as  little  pretense  as  when  he 
mended  the  harnesses  of  the  farmers  who 
brought  the  grain  to  this  market  from  our 
prairies.  The  church  building  in  those  days 
w^as  considered  a  first-class  one,  and  we  had  a 
first-class  pew  therein,  and  the  annual  expense 
of  my  half  of  the  pew  was  only  $12.50  more 
than  it  would  have  been  in  our  Saviour's  time. 
People  wonder  at  the  rapid  increase  in  the 
price  of  real  estate  at  the  West;  but  it  bears 
no  comparison  with  the  increase  in  the  price 
of  gospel  privileges.  A  good  clergyman  is 
well  worth  all  that  a  liberal-hearted  congrega- 
tion may  see  fit  to  pay  him.  But  the  people 
ought  to  cry  out  against  the  reckless  waste  of 
money,  steadily  increasing,  in  the  erection  of 
extravagant  church  edifices.  And  the  pride 
in  such  matters  seems  to  eat  up  all  other 
116 


3Fol)n  f^mthJortJ) 


considerations.  During  the  recent  panic,  a 
Christian  lady  of  this  city,  with  a  large  family 
of  children,  whose  husband  was  suddenly  re- 
duced from  opulence  to  penury,  astonished  me 
by  observing,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  that  her 
most  grievous  affliction  was  that  she  would  be 
compelled  to  give  up  her  pew  in  the  church, 
which  was  one  of  the  most  expensive  in  the 
city,  and  take  one  in  a  cheaper  edifice.  And 
yet  our  people  sing  in  every  church,  ' '  God  is 
present  everywhere!" 

At  the  close  of  service  one  day,  Parson 
Hinton  said  he  thought  Chicago  people  ought 
to  know  more  about  the  devil  than  they  did. 
Therefore  he  would  take  up  his  history,  in  four 
lectures;  first,  he  would  give  the  origin  of  the 
devil;  second,  state  what  the  devil  has  done; 
third,  state  what  the  devil  is  now  doing;  and 
fourth,  prescribe  how  to  destroy  the  devil. 
These  lectures  were  the  sensation  for  the  next 
four  weeks.  The  house  could  not  contain  the 
mass  that  flocked  to  hear  him,  and  it  is  a 
wonder  to  me  that  those  four  lectures  have 
not  been  preserved.  Chicago  newspaper  en- 
terprise had  not  then  reached  here.  The  third 
evening  was  one  never  to  be  forgotten  in  this 
city;  as  it  would  not  be  if  one  of  our  most 
eminent  clerg}^men,  with  the  effective  manner 
of  preaching  that  Mr.  Hinton  had,  should  under- 
take to  tell  us  what  the  devil  is  doing  in  this 
city  to-day.  The  drift  of  his  discourse  was  to 
prove  that  everybody  had  a  devil;    that  the 

"7 


JUcminiiefcence^  of  €arlp  Cfjicago 

devil  was  in  every  store,  and  in  every  bank, 
and  he  did  not  even  except  the  church.  He 
had  the  devil  down  outside  and  up  the  middle 
of  every  dance;  in  the  ladies'  curls,  and  the 
gentlemen's  whiskers.  In  fact,  before  he  fin- 
ished, he  proved  conclusively  that  there  were 
just  as  many  devils  in  every  pew  as  there  were 
persons  in  it;  and  if  it  were  in  this  our  day, 
there  would  not  have  been  swine  enough  in 
the  Stock  Yards  to  cast  them  into.  When 
the  people  came  out  of  church,  they  would  ask 
each  other,  "What  is  your  devil?"  And  they 
would  stop  one  another  in  the  streets  during 
the  week,  and  ask,  "What  does  Parson  Hinton 
say  your  devil  is?"  The  fourth  lecture  con- 
tained his  prescription  for  destroying  the  devil. 
I  remember  his  closing:  "Pray  on,  brethren 
and  friends;  pray  ever.  Fight  as  well  as  pray. 
Pray  and  fight  until  the  devil  is  dead! 

"The    world,  the  flesh,  the  devil, 
Will  prove  a  fatal  snare. 
Unless  we  do  resist  him, 
By  faith  and  humble  prayer." 

In  this  grand  contest  with  his  Satanic 
Majesty,  he,  our  leader,  fought  gloriously,  but 
he  fell  early  in  the  strife.  We,  his  hearers, 
have  kept  up  a  gallant  fight  to  this  day,  but 
judging  by  our  morning  papers,  the  devil  is 
still  far  from  being  dead.  Yet  we  dealt  him 
some  heavy  blows  at  the  recent  election! 

An  interesting  institution  was  the  ferry-boat 
between  the  North  and  South  sides.  It  was 
ii8 


gfofjn  i^mttortl^ 


a  general  intelligence  office.  Business  was 
done  principally  upon  the  South  Side,  while 
most  of  the  dwelling-houses  were  upon  the 
North  Side.  The  ferryman  knew  about  every 
person  in  town,  and  could  answer  any  question 
as  to  who  had  crossed.  The  streets  had  not 
then  been  raised  to  their  present  grade,  nor 
the  river  deepened  or  widened,  and  the  boat 
was  easily  accessible  to  teams.  It  was  pulled 
across  by  a  rope,  and  was  not  used  enough  to 
kill  the  green  rushes  which  grew  in  the  river. 
If  a  lady  came  upon  the  South  Side  to  pass  an 
evening,  she  would  leave  word  with  the  ferry- 
man where  her  husband  could  find  her. 
Bundles  and  letters  were  left  with  him  to  be 
delivered  to  persons  as  they  passed.  He  was 
a  sort  of  superannuated  sailor,  and  if  he  had 
not  sailed  into  every  port  in  the  world,  he  had 
a  remarkable  faculty  of  making  people  think 
he  had.  His  fund  of  stories  was  inexhaustible, 
and  he  was  constantly  spinning  his  interesting 
yarns  to  those  who  patronized  his  institution. 
Like  most  sailors,  he  could  not  pull  unless  he 
sung,  and  to  all  his  songs  had  one  refrain  with 
a  single  variation.  His  voice  was  loud  and 
sonorous.  If  he  felt  dispirited,  his  refrain 
was,  "And  I  sigh  as  I  pull  on  my  boat."  If 
he  felt  jolly  (and  people  took  particular  pains 
to  make  him  so),  his  refrain  was,  "And  I  sing 
as  I  pull  on  my  boat."  All  night  long  this 
refrain  was  disturbing  the  ears  of  those  who 
dwelt  near  the  banks  of  the  river.  Song  after 
119 


Memm^tentt^  of  €arip  Cjjicago 

song  was  composed  for  him,  in  the  hope  of 
changing  his  tune,  but  it  would  not  be  long 
before  he  would  attach  to  it  his  usual  refrain. 
One  of  our  musical  composers  composed  a 
quadrille,  which  our  young  folks  used  to  dance 
in  the  evening  on  the  ferry,  during  certain 
portions  of  which  they  would  all  join  in  old 
Jack's  refrain,  and  sing,  "And  we'll  dance  as 
we  ride  on  the  boat."  There  was  a  little  boy 
who  took  great  delight  in  Jack's  company, 
whose  parents  lived  on  the  margin  of  the  river 
near  the  ferry,  and  as  in  the  last  of  his  sick- 
ness he  was  burning  with  a  violent  fever, 
nothing  would  quiet  him  but  the  sound  of  old 
Jack's  voice.  Old  Jack  had  just  sung,  "And 
I  sigh  as  I  pull  on  my  boat,"  when  the  boy 
whispered  his  last  words  to  his  mother,  "And 
I  die  while  Jack  pulls  on  his  boat!"  Jack 
heard  of  this,  and  his  lungs  became  stronger 
than  ever.  Racking  both  his  memory  and  his 
imagination  for  songs,  for  weeks  all  night  long 
he  sung,  with  his  plaintive  refrain,  "Charlie 
dies  while  Jack  pulls  on  his  boat."  A  dis- 
tinguished poetess  traveling  at  the  West  about 
this  time  was  tarrying  at  the  Lake  House, 
and  heard  of  the  incident.  She  wrote  for 
a  New  York  magazine  some  beautiful  lines 
appropriate  to  the  last  words  of  the  child 
and  the  circumstances.  These  were  repro- 
duced in  our  Chicago  papers,  but  I  have  in 
vain  sought  to  find  them.  Some  of  our  old 
scrap-books  undoubtedly  contain  them,  and  I 

120 


gpoljn  l^enttuortfj 


would  like  to  be  the  instrument  of  their  republi- 
cation. 

Old  Jack  went  to  church  one  Sunday,  and 
the  clergyman  preached  from  the  text,  "Who- 
soever shall  be  ashamed  of  me  and  my  words, 
of  him  shall  the  Son  of  Man  be  ashamed  when 
he  shall  come  in  his  own  glory. ' '  After  church 
was  over,  the  clergyman  took  Jack  to  task  for 
making  so  much  noise  on  his  ferry-boat,  and 
told  him  he  was  going  to  have  him  removed. 
' '  You  can't  do  it, ' '  said  Jack.  ' '  Why  not .? ' ' 
said  the  clergyman.  "Your  sermon,  sir,  your 
sermon!  You  said  we  must  make  a  practical 
application  of  it."  "How  can  you  apply  that 
to  your  position?"  "In  this  way,"  said  Jack; 
"the  mayor  appoints  a  ferryman.  I  will  just 
tell  him,  he  that  is  ashamed  of  me  and  my  boat, 
of  him  will  I  be  ashamed  when  I  go  to  the 
polls  on  the  day  of  election!"  Jack  was  not 
removed.  But  he  went  one  fall  to  the  South 
with  the  robins;  but  unlike  the  robins,  he 
returned  no  more.  He  probably  saw  the 
coming  bridge. 

It  was  customary  during  the  winter  to  give 
a  series  of  dancing-parties  at  central  points 
between  here  and  Fox  River,  along  the  line  of 
some  of  our  main  traveled  roads,  notices  of 
which  were  generally  given  in  newspapers. 
We  used  to  have  much  more  snow  than 
we  have  now,  and  large  sleigh-loads  of 
people  would  be  fitted  out  from  the  city,  to 
meet  young  people  from  different  parts  of  the 

121 


iSlemini^cence^  of  €atli^  <tf)icago 

country.  People  in  the  country  settlements  were 
generally  emigrants  from  the  more  cultivated 
portions  of  the  East.  United  States  Senator 
Silas  Wright  once  told  me  that  he  could 
enumerate  a  hundred  families,  the  very  flower 
of  the  agricultural  interest  of  St.  Lawrence 
County,  who  had  emigrated  to  west  of  Chicago. 
These  settlers  were  not  always  poor;  they  were 
often  men  of  large  families  who  came  here  to 
obtain  a  large  quantity  of  contiguous  land,  so 
as  to  settle  their  children  around  them.  The 
custom  at  these  parties  was  to  leave  Chicago 
about  4  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  take  supper 
on  the  way  out,  and  engage  breakfast  for  the 
morning,  and  after  dancing  all  night,  getting 
back  to  the  city  about  9  or  10  o'clock.  The 
hotels  in  the  country  we  frequently  built  of  logs, 
but  whether  of  logs  or  boards,  were  generally 
built  in  one  style.  Cooking-rooms,  bar-room, 
sitting-rooms,  were  below,  and  above  was  one 
large  hall,  which  could  be  used  for  religious 
services  on  Sunday  or  public  meetings  on  a 
weekday,  and,  by  suspending  blankets,  could 
be  divided  into  sleeping-rooms.  Above  was 
the  attic,  which  could  be  used  for  storage  when 
the  hall  was  cleared,  and  also  for  dressing- 
rooms  at  parties.  Ladies  and  gentlemen 
could  more  easily  find  their  wearing  apparel 
when  suspended  from  nails  driven  into  the 
beams  of  the  building  than  they  can  now  from 
the  small  dressing-rooms  where  the  clothing  is 
in  constant  danger  of  being  mixed  together. 


5FoJ)n  H^mttoortfj 


I  remember  one  of  these  occasions  when  the 
country  residents  had  begun  the  dance  before 
those  from  the  city  had  reached  there.  Coun- 
try ladies  were  passing  up  and  down  the  ladder 
to  the  dressing-room.  But  the  city  ladies 
would  not  ascend  the  ladder  until  it  had  been 
fenced  around  with  blankets.  There  were 
always,  on  these  occasions,  mothers  present 
from  the  country,  who  attended  the  young 
people  to  look  after  the  care  of  their  health, 
such  as  seeing  that  they  were  properly  covered 
on  their  going  home  from  a  warm  room,  as 
physicians  were  very  scarce  in  the  country,  and 
it  was  a  great  distance  for  many  of  them  to 
send  for  medicines.  These  country  matrons 
took  it  much  to  heart  that  the  young  ladies 
from  the  city  were  so  particular  in  having  the 
ladder  fenced  oft",  and  were  very  free  in  the 
expression  of  their  views  on  the  subject  to  the 
elderly  gentlemen  present.  During  the  even- 
ing a  sleigh-load  was  driven  up  containing  a 
French  danseuse  from  Chicago,  of  considerable 
note  in  those  days;  and  it  was  not  long  after 
she  entered  the  hall  before  the  floor  was  cleared 
for  her  to  have  an  opportunity  to  show  her 
agility  as  a  fancy  dancer.  .  When  she  began 
to  swing  around  upon  one  foot,  with  the  other 
extended,  one  of  these  country  matrons,  with 
a  great  deal  of  indignation,  ran  across  the  hall 
to  her  son,  and  said,  "I  don't  think  it  is  proper 
for  our  young  folks  to  see  any  such  perform- 
ance as  this,  and  now  you  go  right  down  and 
123 


^emm^tmtt^  of  €arlp  Cljicago 

tell  the  landlord  that  we  want  some  more 
blankets,"  and  the  boy  started  before  the  last 
part  of  the  sentence  was  heard,  "and  I'll  have 
her  fenced  off  by  herself,  as  the  city  ladies  did 
the  ladder!"  Her  remarks  were  passed  from 
one  to  another,  and  the  company  was  loudly 
applauding  them,  when  the  applause  was  greatly 
increased  by  the  entrance  of  the  landlord  with 
some  blankets  under  his  arm.  The  more  the 
applause  increased,  the  more  animated  became 
the  danseuse,  who  took  it  all  to  herself.  The 
fancy  dance  was  finished,  but  the  merriment 
had  such  an  effect  that  one  of  our  city  young 
men  took  down  the  blankets  around  the  ladder, 
and  for  the  remainder  of  the  evening  the 
exposed  ladder  and  the  nimble  French  danseuse 
ceased  to  attract  attention. 

I  have  thus  made  you  a  few  selections  from 
my  large  casket  of  reminiscences  of  the  amuse- 
ments of  early  Chicago.  But  I  give  them  as 
a  mere  appendix  to  my  historical  lecture,  and 
do  not  wish  them  considered  as  any  part  of  it, 
as  I  could  have  ended  without  them,  and  then 
have  given  you  a  lecture  of  ordinary  length. 
If  anyone  thinks  them  inappropriate  to  this 
occasion,  I  wish  to  say  that  I  respectfully  con- 
cur in  his  views.  If,  however,  they  have 
served  to  compensate  any  of  you  for  the  tedium 
of  the  more  historical  portion  of  it,  I  will  waive 
the  question  of  their  appropriateness,  and  ex- 
press my  gratification  at  having  them  given. 


124 


gioi^n  mcnttportl^ 

[An  Address  delivered  at  the  Reception  to  the  Settlers 

of  Chicago  Prior  to  1840,  by  the  Calumet 

Club  of  Chicago,  May  27,  1879.] 


I  WAS  gratified  to  receive  an  invitation  to 
attend  this  union  of  the  old  settlers  of 
Chicago,  and  still  more  gratified  to  find 
enclosed  in  the  invitation  a  printed  list  of  the 
others  who  had  been  invited.  It  is  with  pleas- 
ure also  that  I  learn  that  since  the  list  was 
printed,  others,  whose  residence  at  that  time 
were  unknown,  have  been  invited.  I  have 
long  wanted  such  a  list — a  list  of  our  living 
pioneers,  a  directory  of  our  living  historians. 
Men  often  call  upon  me  to  make  inquiries  con- 
cerning past  events;  and  when  I  feel  unable 
to  give  them  correct  answers,  I  try  to  think  of 
some  person  now  living  who  can.  But  it  has 
been  difficult  to  tell  who  were  living,  and,  if 
living,  where  they  lived.  Now  I  have  a  direct- 
ory of  the  living.  This  list  furnishes  me  with 
an  index  to  the  voluminous  unwritten  history 
of  Chicago.  There  is  scarcely  an  event  in  our 
early  history  with  which  some  person  whose 
name  is  here  recorded  is  not  associated. 
Every  name  I  look  at  suggests  some  chapter  in 
our  history.  I  prefer  to  speak  from  this  list, 
as  the  room  is  too  crowded  for  me  to  recognize 
125 


iHemini^ccnce^  of  €arip  Cfjicago 

all,  and  yet  there  are  many  who  are  prevented 
by  the  various  necessities  of  life  from  attend- 
ance. I  feel  safe  in  saying  that  all  absent  old 
settlers  are  with  us  in  spirit,  and  will  look  with 
interest  for  our  proceedings.  I  have  tried  to 
shake  hands  with  all,  and  I  have  noticed  no  one 
yet  whom  I  have  not  readily  recognized.  And 
all  seemed  to  know  me,  and  I  think  there  is  no 
one  here  who  has  not  some  time  voted  for  me 
for  some  position,  dependent  upon  his  concur- 
rence with  my  views  upon  the  measures  of 
public  policy  then  pending. 

When  I  first  entered  the  room,  I  exclaimed, 
"History,  Chicago's  History!"  and  whilst  I 
was  remarking  to  some  older  settlers  than  my- 
self that  I  had  lived  in  the  state  long  enough 
to  have  shaken  hands  with  all  of  our  governors 
but  three,  I  noticed  in  the  crowd  Colonel 
Gurdon  S.  Hubbard  (who  was  here  in  i8i8), 
who  must  have  shaken  hands  with  the  other 
three.  And  now  my  eye  catches  a  glimpse  of 
Colonel  Edmund  D.  Taylor,  who  has  shaken 
hands  with  every  governor  Illinois  ever  had, 
state  or  territorial.  I  tell  you,  Mr.  President, 
if  I  am  to  make  a  short  speech,  it  is  going  to 
be  dangerous  to  look  around,  and  quite  as 
dangerous  to  keep  looking  at  this  list.  Chap- 
ter after  chapter  of  our  history  is  flitting  across 
my  mind  so  rapidly  that  my  tongue  cannot 
keep  pace  with  my  thoughts.  Colonel  Taylor 
must  be  the  oldest  Illinoisan  in  the  room,  if 
not  in  this  part  of  the  state.  He  came  here 
126 


gfofjn  H^entlttortlJ 


when  Illinois  was  a  territory  in  1 8 14,  contain- 
ing a  population  of  about  l2,00O  people,  and 
there  were  a  few  slaves  then;  and  the  capital 
was  at  Kaskaskia.  He  was  elected  to  the 
House  of  Representatives  from  Sangamon 
County,  August  2,  1830,  when  the  capital  was 
at  Vandalia,  and  again,  August  6,  1832.  He 
was  elected  to  the  Senate  August  4,  1834,  and, 
after  participating  in  our  early  canal  legislation, 
he  received  a  commission  from  General  Andrew 
Jackson,  as  receiver  of  public  moneys  at 
Chicago.  In  him  you  see  the  man  who  sold,  at 
the  sale  commencing  June  15,  1835,  the  first 
acre  of  land  for  the  United  States  Government 
in  this  region;  and  the  very  lot  upon  which  we 
are  now  so  agreeably  enjoying  ourselves  was 
sold  by  him  at  $1.25  per  acre,  and  his  first  sale 
amounted  to  nearly  a  half  million  of  dollars. 
Our  more  recent  settlers,  who  are  accustomed 
to  high-priced  lands,  will  not  think  this  much 
of  a  sale.  But,  when  they  consider  the  price, 
they  will  appreciate  the  magnitude  of  the  sale, 
it  being  near  400,000  acres.  So  here,  tonight, 
we  have  the  first  chapter  in  our  land  history. 
We  can  here  begin  at  the  section-corner. 
Colonel  Taylor  was  born  in  old  Virginia,  and 
he  has  not  changed  his  landed  jurisdiction 
much;  for  he  is  tonight  in  what  was  once  part 
of  the  state  of  his  birth.  And  this  reminds  me 
that,  not  long  since,  some  one  wrote  me  in 
behalf  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Virginia, 
asking  me  the  names  of  our  prominent  citizens 
127 


Maximi^trntt^  of  €arlp  Chicago 

who  had  emigrated  from  that  state.  My  knowl- 
edge of  birthplaces  has  not  kept  pace  with 
our  directory.  So,  in  ignorance  of  the  present, 
I  referred  him  to  the  past,  claiming  that,  if 
Chicago  was  colonized  from  any  quarter,  it 
must  have  been  from  old  Virginia.  I  referred 
him  to  David  McKee,  whose  name  is  upon  this 
list.  If  not  here  tonight,  two  of  his  brothers- 
in-law  are — Willard  and  Willis  Scott.  He  was 
one  of  the  very  first  men  who  were  married  in 
this  city.  He  was  married  by  the  original 
settler,  John  Kinzie,  January  23,  1827.  He 
was  the  first  blacksmith  in  our  city,  and  carried 
our  only  mail  once  a  month  to  and  from  Fort 
Wayne,  Indiana.  There  was  another  Virginian, 
to  whom  I  referred  him,  Archibald  Caldwell, 
who  kept  the  original  Wolf  Point  Hotel,  now 
living  near  Kershena,  Wisconsin,  whom  I  am 
sorry  not  to  see  here;  but  here  is  Willis  Scott 
(not  a  Virginian),  whose  first  wife  was  his  sister. 
Benjamin  Hall  is  a  Virginian,  whose  second 
wife  is  a  sister  of  our  honored  president  tonight. 
Judge  John  Dean  Caton.  He  is  now  living  at 
Wheaton,  Illinois,  with  a  head  full  of  early 
history.  And  our  chaplain  here  tonight,  Rev. 
Stephen  R.  Beggs,  was  born  in  Rockingham 
County,  Virginia,  March  30,  1 80 1,  the  same 
month  in  which  Thomas  Jefferson  was  inau- 
gurated President.  There  may  be  other  Vir- 
ginians living,  but  of  the  deceased  my  memory 
recalls  James  Kinzie,  our  first  sheriff;  his 
brother,  William  Kinzie;  Archibald  Clybourne, 
128 


^tA^n  H^enttDortlJ 


justice  of  the  peace  in  183 1;  liis  father,  James 
Clybourne,  and  his  brother,  Henry  Clybourne; 
our  early  presiding  elder,  Rev,  Jesse  Walker; 
John  K.  Clarke,  the  celebrated  hunter;  David 
Hall;  and  Samuel,  John  and  Jacob  Miller. 

There  is  another  man  here  tonight  who 
revives  in  my  mind,  not  only  a  great  deal  of 
our  city's  and  our  state's  history,  but  of  that 
of  the  entire  Northwest.  He  was  at  Detroit 
when  General  Hull  surrendered  the  American 
army  in  18 12.  All  of  you  have  read  the  par- 
ticulars of  that  surrender;  but  few  of  you  ever 
heard  of  them  from  an  eye-witness.  And  this 
may  be  the  last  occasion  when  any  of  you  will 
be  able  to  look  upon  a  man  who  was  present 
upon  that  occasion.  So  I  speak  to  you  of 
Mr.  Mark  Beaubien  as  a  gentleman  of  unusual 
interest.  It  is  over  forty  years  since  I  heard 
his  narrative,  and  also  heard  him  sing  a  song 
in  ridicule  of  the  surrender,  made  by  the 
inhabitants,  which  he  sung  in  my  office  yester- 
day with  the  same  vivacity  with  which  he  sung 
it  before  our  city  was  incorporated.  And  he 
accompanied  it  with  his  fiddle — the  same  old 
fiddle.  And  who  is  there  here  tonight  who 
has  not  heard  that  fiddle?  How  well  it  has 
been  preserved  we  will  show  you  after  the 
refreshments  have  been  finished.  We  are  too 
old  to  dance  upon  an  empty  stomach.  Among 
my  pleasent  recollections  are  those  of  frolics 
to  the  music  of  that  fiddle,  made  up  of  Indians, 
half-breeds,  Canadian  French,  and  Americans. 
129 


^emmi^ccncc^  of  <6arlp  CJjicago 

And  our  Indians  were  no  common  Indians. 
They  were  chiefs  with  their  famihes.  The 
chiefs  disUked  to  leave  us.  Long  and  long 
after  their  tribes  departed,  the  chiefs  remained; 
and,  when  they  did  go,  many  would  revisit  us. 
Who  does  not  remember  Chamblee  (Shabonee) 
and  Robinson  (Che-che-pin-que),  who  died 
amongst  us,  and  Billy  Caldwell  (Sauganash) 
who  died  September  28,  1841,  at  Council 
Bluffs,  Iowa,  with  his  tribe — although  pass- 
ing much  of  his  time  with  us?  I  remember 
meeting,  at  Mr.  Beaubien's,  Sauganash  and 
Shabonee.  Mr.  Beaubien  told  the  story  of 
the  surrender  of  Detroit  by  General  Hull,  and 
its  recapture  by  General  Harrison.  Then 
Sauganash  and  Shabonee  gave  an  account  of 
the  battle  of  the  Thames  and  the  death  of 
Tecumseh!  When  the  Americans  made  the 
attack,  Tecumseh,  Sauganash  and  Shabonee 
were  sitting  upon  a  log  in  consultation. 
Shabonee  was  aide  to  Tecumseh,  and  Sauga- 
nash held  a  commission  as  captain  in  the 
British  army  under  the  name  of  Billy  Caldwell. 
A  wonderful  man  was  this  Billy  Caldwell,  and 
there  are  several  in  this  room  who  have  been 
upon  hunting  excursions  with  him.  He  owed 
allegiance  to  three  governments  without  any 
renunciation.  He  was  Captain  Caldwell  of 
the  British  army.  Esquire  Caldwell  of  the 
State  of  Illinois,  and  Sauganash,  Chief  of  the 
Pottawatomies.  He  was  appointed  justice  of 
the  peace  April  18,  1826,  being  the  first 
130 


3Foljn  naenthjortf) 


appointment  after  Chicago  was  set  off  from 
Fulton  County  to  Peoria. 

Many  of  us  remember  the  part  played  by 
Mr.  Beaubien  and  his  fiddle  at  the  marriage 
of  the  daughter  of  the  Indian  chief,  Joseph 
Laframboise,  to  Thomas  Watkins,  a  clerk  in 
the  post  office,  where  I,  for  the  first  time,  saw 
the  original  "war  dance."  The  company  was 
made  up,  in  about  equal  numbers,  of  Indians, 
half-breeds,  Canadian  French,  and  Americans. 
A  few  days  thereafter,  we  remember  that  an 
elegant  party,  for  those  times,  was  given  in 
honor  of  the  newly  married  couple  by  a  nephew 
of  Mark  Beaubien,  and  the  fiddle  came  to  the 
front  again.  His  name  was  Medore  B. 
Beaubien,  and  he  was  a  member  of  the  first 
board  of  trustees,  elected  in  1833,  nearly  a 
half-century  ago.  He  is  the  earliest-elected 
officer  of  Chicago  now  living,  and  the  bride  of 
that  occasion,  now  living,  is  his  second  wife. 
He  is  the  business  agent  of  the  Pottawatomie 
Indians,  and  is  the  mayor  of  the  city  of 
Silver  Lake,  Kansas.  His  name  is  upon  this 
list,  as  also  is  that  of  his  partner  in  Chicago 
mercantile  business  in  early  times,  Valentine 
A.  Beyer. 

Our  friend,  Mark  Beaubien,  erected  the  first 
hotel  upon  the  South  Side,  and  named  it  after 
his  friend,  Sauganash;  and  it  was  there  I  took 
my  dinner  upon  the  first  day  of  my  arrival 
here,  October  25,  1836.  Near  this  hotel,  he 
established  the  first  ferry  across  the  Chicago 
131 


titmm^tmtt^  of  €arlp  Cl&tcago 

River.  At  his  house,  the  first  election  for 
trustees  was  held  on  August  lO,  1833.  Some 
one  may  ask  if  I  wish  it  understood  that  the 
whole  population  was  running  after  Mark 
Beaubien  and  his  fiddle  in  those  days.  The 
facts  would  be  otherwise,  if  I  did.  For  here 
were  Philo  Carpenter,  Grant  Goodrich,  both 
now  present  (to  say  nothing  of  the  many  noble 
dead),  who  were  organizing  Bible  societies, 
temperance  societies,  home  and  foreign  mis- 
sionary societies,  and  otherwise  sowing  the  seed 
which  has  made  our  city  the  most  reverential 
and  moral  city  of  its  size  in  the  world  —  the 
City  of  Churches — the  city  where  ambitious 
and  destitute  congregations  send  for  their  best 
preachers,  and  from  which  vacant  dioceses 
select  their  best  bishops.  I  was  much  interested 
in  a  recent  lecture  upon  early  Methodism  in 
Chicago,  delivered  by  Grant  Goodrich.  It  is 
often  said  the  good  die  young.  The  gray  hairs 
and  bald  heads  in  this  assemblage  contradict 
the  assertion.  The  old  settlers  of  Chicago  are 
passing  their  threescore  years  and  ten,  and  are 
still  invoking  Providence  to  point  out  to  them 
paths  of  usefulness. 

I  see  Willis  Scott  here,  who  had  to  go  to 
Peoria  in  1830  for  his  marriage  license.  There 
are  several  persons  here  who  were  here  when 
the  first  steamboat  arrived  to  bring  General 
Scott  and  his  troops  for  the  Black  Hawk  War. 
Here  is  Judge  R.  N.  Murray,  who  was  one  of 
General  Scott's  soldiers,  and  marched  under 
132 


3Fol)n  IBenttDottJ) 


him  to  the  Rock  River  Valley.  There  are 
persons  here  who  have  lived  in  Fulton  County, 
Peoria  County,  and  Cook  County,  and  never 
changed  their  residence.  If  John  Watkins  is 
not  here,  he  ought  to  be,  for  he  taught  our 
first  district  school  and  was  the  first  clerk  of 
our  first  school  district,  and  is  living  near 
Joliet.  Philo  Carpenter  and  Grant  Goodrich 
were  upon  the  excutive  committee  of  our  first 
Bible  society,  formed  in  1 83  5,  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  name  any  good  cause  in  which  they 
and  Tuthill  King  were  not  engaged.  Deacon 
Carpenter  was  the  master  spirit  in  forming  the 
first  anti-slavery  society,  and  knew  better  than 
any  other  man  the  safest,  if  not  the  shortest, 
route  from  Chicago  to  Canada.  There  are 
several  attorneys  here  who  were  in  active  prac- 
tice before  our  city  was  organized,  and  both 
the  members  of  the  firm  of  Goodrich  & 
Fullerton  yet  live  here.  And  here  is  J.  Young 
Scammon,  who  published  the  second  volume 
of  the  Illinois  Supreme  Court  reports,  and  now 
we  are  upon  our  ninetieth  volume.  If  our 
state  had  adopted  the  plan  of  most  states  and 
only  published  one  volume  each  year,  he  would 
be  much  over  one  hundred  years  of  age  by  this 
time.  And  here  is  ex-Chief  Justice  John  Dean 
Caton,  whose  opinions  have  helped  make  up 
those  reports.  And  here  are  the  names  of 
Joseph  N.  Balestier,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  Andrew 
J.  Brown,  Henry  W.  Clarke,  Hugh  T.  Dickey, 
Grant  Goodrich,  James  Grant,  Thomas  Hoyne, 

133 


^Hcmim^ccttcc^  of  €at\p  €{)icago 

Alonzo  Huntington,  Buckner  S.  Morris,  Mah- 
lon  D.  Ogden,  Mark  Skinner,  and  Wm.  B. 
Snowhook.  Here  are  physicians  who  were 
here  before  our  city  was  organized:  Dr.  D.  S. 
Smith,  Dr.  L.  D.  Boone  (since  mayor),  and 
Dr.  John  W.  Eldridge,  who  was,  in  1840, 
elected  one  of  the  presidential  electors  who 
cast  the  vote  of  this  state  for  Martin  Van 
Buren.  He  was  one  of  the  first  men  to 
appreciate  me.  For  he  went  to  a  Democratic 
congressional  convention  in  the  winter  of 
1837-8  and  voted  for  me  when  I  was  constitu- 
tionally ineligible,  being  but  twenty-two  years 
of  age.  Stephen  A.  Douglas  secured  the 
nomination;  and  the  man  who  introduced  me  to 
him,  Isaac  Cook,  who  kept,  at  his  ' '  Eagle, ' '  the 
most  fashionable  resort  for  Illinois  politicians, 
is  with  us  tonight.  And  here  are  a  dozen  men 
who  heard  the  first  public  discussion  ever  held 
in  this  city,  that  between  Stephen  A.  Douglas 
and  his  successful  competitor,  John  T.  Stuart, 
of  Springfield,  the  only  man  now  living,  of  either 
branch  of  Congress,  who  entered  Congress 
from  Illinois  before  I  did.  Dr.  Eldridge, 
however,  got  his  man  in  1843,  and  Douglas 
also  had  to  wait  until  I  went  with  him.  Our 
first  medical  college  was  chartered  in  1837, 
and  here  tonight  are  three  of  the  original 
trustees.  Grant  Goodrich,  Edmund  D.  Taylor, 
and  John  D.  Caton.  How  many  old  merchants 
are  there  here  tonight  on  this  list?  Philo 
Carpenter,  Tuthill  King,  Devotion   C.  Eddy, 

134 


<^ofyx  U^entttjortlj 


Mathew  S.  Molony,  Horatio  G.  Loomis,  Wm. 
H.  Adams,  Wm.  Osborn,  Gurdon  S.  Hubbard, 
J.  Milo  Strail,  Eli  B.  Williams,  Oren  Sherman, 
E.  S.  Wadsworth,  W.  H.  Taylor,  Edwin  Black- 
man,  V.  A.  Boyer,  James  E.  Bishop,  Samuel  J. 
Surdam,  Edmund  D.  Taylor,  Stephen  F,  Gale, 
M.  L.  Satterlee,  Ed.  K.  Rodgers,  Sidney 
Sawyer,  M.  B.  Beaubien,  Walter  Kimball, 
Jabez  K.  Botsford,  Joel  C.  Walter,  George 
Chacksfield,  Benj.  W.  Raymond,  T.  B.  Carter, 
and  others.  Colonel  Hubbard,  in  1835,  adver- 
tised that  a  schooner  had  just  arrived,  bringing 
him  fresh  goods  only  twenty  days  from  New 
York.  And  here  is  Arthur  G.  Burley,  the 
oldest  continuous  merchant  in  our  city.  I 
found  him  a  clerk  in  the  store  of  John  Holbrook 
when  I  came  here.  He  was  in  business  in 
1838,  and  I  still  buy  my  crockery  of  him.  He 
was  burned  out  in  1839,  as  well  as  in  1871, 
going  into  the  fire  like  the  salamander  and 
coming  out  like  the  phoenix. 

This  list  furnishes  index  to  the  whole  history 
of  our  fire  department.  Late  in  1835,  Colonel 
Gurdon  S.  Hubbard  engaged  our  first  hand 
engine  in  New  York,  but  not  in  time  for  it 
to  reach  Chicago  that  year.  Captain  John  M. 
Turner  was  the  first  foreman  of  Hook  and 
Ladder  Company  No.  i,  and  was  promoted 
from  that  place  to  be  our  first  chief  engineer, 
March  1 1,  1837,  the  oldest  now  living;  and 
here  are  the  names  of  some  of  his  successors: 
Alanson  S.  Sherman,  Luther  Nichols,  and 
135 


Mtmm^tmtt0  of  €arlp  C[)icago 

Stephen  F.  Gale.  We  have  here  tonight  eight 
members  of  the  original  fire  company  organized 
in  1835,  viz.:  Jabez  K.  Botsford,  Isaac  Cook, 
Silas  B.  Cobb,  Charles  Cleaver,  John  L. 
Wilson,  Wm.  H.  Taylor,  Grant  Goodrich,  and 
Tuthill  King.  Would  you  not  like  to  see  them 
running  with  the  machine  now?  The  fire 
company  held  its  meetings  in  the  Presbyterian 
church,  for  whose  dimensions,  as  compared 
with  our  present  engine-house,  I  refer  you  to 
Deacon  Benjamin  W.  Raymond.  Our  early 
clergymen  are  well  represented  on  this  list  also. 
Besides  our  venerable  chaplain,  who  tells  us  he 
was  here  in  183 1,  1  see  the  name  of  Reverend 
Jeremiah  Porter,  who  was  here  in  1834,  and  of 
Luke  Hitchcock  and  Flavel  Bascom  who  came 
after.  There  were  no  baptismal  fonts  in  those 
days.  But,  purer  than  old  Jordan  ever  was, 
the  Chicago  River  was  good  enough  for 
immersion.  I  remember  upon  one  cold  day 
early  in  February,  1839,  seeing  seventeen 
immersed,  and  Chicago's  honored  architect, 
present  here  tonight,  John  M.  Van  Osdel,  was 
one  of  them. 

This  list  shows  that  our  early  surveyors  are 
nearly  all  living.  Here  is  the  name  of  Amos 
Bailey,  who  was  county  surveyor  before  our 
city  was  organized;  and  of  Asa  F.  Bradley, 
his  successor,  who  held  the  office  until  1849; 
and  James  H.  Rees,  our  first  city  surveyor, 
and  here  by  my  side  sits  Alex.  Wolcott,  our 
present  and  long-time  surveyor,  elected  in  1855, 
136 


gfofju  iBenthJort!) 


a  settler  of  1834,  who  has  waded  every  marsh 
in  our  county;  and,  whilst  sitting  in  his  office, 
can  describe  the  precise  spot  where  we  can 
find  any  section-corner.  And  here  also  is  the 
name  of  E.  B.  Talcott,  who  was  town  surveyor 
under  the  government  of  the  Trustees.  Here 
is  the  name  of  Augustine  D.  Taylor,  who  saw 
the  first  printing-press  landed  at  our  Chicago 
Harbor,  in  1 83 3;  and  here  is  Walter  Kimball, 
who  was  in  the  office  when  the  first  newspaper. 
The  Chicago  Democrat,  was  struck  off,  Novem- 
ber 26,  1833. 

Too  late  for  him  to  attend,  an  invitation 
was  sent  to  Captain  Morgan  L.  Shapley,  at 
Meridian,  Texas,  who  was  employed  at  Buffalo 
in  June,  1833,  to  come  here  and  assist  at  the 
commencement  of  the  works  at  our  harbor. 
A.  V.  Knickerbocker  should  be  here,  son  of 
the  first  clerk  of  the  harbor  works,  who  con- 
tinued in  that  capacity  many  years.  And  here 
is  C.  B.  Dodson,  one  of  the  first  contractors. 
Lieutenant  A.  A.  Humphreys,  now  general, 
and  chief  of  engineers  at  Washington  city,  who 
took  charge  of  the  harbor  works  as  early  as 
1838,  could  give  us  some  very  pleasant  reminis- 
cences of  early  Chicago,  and  so  could  Colonel 
Jesse  H.  Leavenworth,  who  succeeded  him. 
I  do  not  find  the  name  of  Jefferson  Davis  upon 
this  list,  nor  see  him  present.  But  he  was 
engaged  in  the  survey  of  Lake  Michigan  about 
1832,  and  I  was  surprised  to  learn,  upon  my 
first  acquaintance  with  him,  how  many  of  our 

137 


^flcmmijfcence^  of  €adp  Cfjicago 

early  settlers  he  knew  and  how  kindly  he  spoke 
of  them.  He  contended  that  Calumet,  instead 
of  Chicago,  should  have  been  the  city. 

You  have  the  whole  history  of  our  canal 
here.  Besides  Colonel  Edmund  D.  Taylor  and 
Colonel  Gurdon  S.  Hubbard,  who  participated 
in  the  early  canal  legislation,  you  should  remem- 
ber that  one  of  the  first  board  of  canal  trustees 
is  present  in  the  person  of  Colonel  Hubbard 
himself,  who  was  elected  representative  from 
Vermillion  County,  in  this  state,  August  6, 
1832.  And  here  is  E.  B.Talcott,  one  of  the 
first  engineers.  There  was  a  grand  celebration 
hereupon  the  fourth  of  July,  1836,  and  the  people 
all  went  to  Bridgeport  to  see  Colonel  W.  B. 
Archer  (for  whom  Archer  Avenue  is  named), 
as  acting  commissioner,  take  out  the  first 
shovelful  of  earth;  and  two  of  the  marshals, 
Walter  Kimball  and  Edmund  D.  Taylor,  are 
now  present.  And  there  are  a  great  many  of 
the  original  canal  contractors  here  present,  and 
others  are  upon  this  list.  Now  we  are  in  the 
habit  of  considering  contractors  a  sort  of  busi- 
ness tramps,  making  their  homes  wherever  they 
overtake  a  job.  But  not  so  with  our  contract- 
ors. Representing  in  Congress  the  entire 
canal  line  from  Chicago  to  LaSalle,  I  think  I 
had  a  personal  acquaintance  with  all  of  them. 
With  a  little  reflection,  I  think  I  could  point 
out  the  job  of  each  man.  And  how  few  ever 
left  our  state.  They  mostly  remained  among 
us  and  have  ranked  among  our  leading  citizens; 
138 


3Fo!)n  H^cnthjortfj 


one  governor,  several  mayors,  senators,  repre- 
sentatives, taking  an  active  part  in  developing 
our  resources  and  in  advancing  our  moral  and 
educational  interests.  They  w^ere  a  very  far- 
seeing  body  of  men  also.  Do  you  not  suppose 
that  George  Armour  had  his  great  elevator  in 
view  when  he  was  digging  the  canal  ?  Here  is 
General  Hart  L.  Stewart,  who  knew  if  he  took  a 
boy  for  the  canal's  first  congressman,  he  would 
finally  grow  to  it!  He  was  vice-president  of 
the  congressional  convention  which  assembled 
at  Joliet,  May  i8,  1843,  over  thirty-five  years 
ago,  our  deceased  lieutenant-governor,  John 
Moore,  being  president.  And  while  upon  the 
subject,  let  me  remark  that  here  is  W.  T. 
Burgess,  one  of  the  secretaries,  and  also  upon 
this  list  Hugh  T.  Dickey,  the  other,  and  also 
Colonel  W.  B.  Snowhook,  Henry  W.  Clarke, 
Colonel  Julius  M.  Warren,  and  Judge  R.  N. 
Murray,  who  were  delegates.  If  my  twelve 
years  in  Congress  were  of  any  service,  you  can 
thank  these  men  who  helped  set  the  ball  in 
motion. 

I  see  the  president  of  one  of  the  old  boards 
of  town  trustees,  Eli  B.  Williams,  and  one 
of  his  colleagues,  Asahel  Pierce,  here,  and  in 
justice  to  that  board  it  should  be  said  that  it 
was  wound  up  without  owing  a  dollar.  And 
that  is  the  way  that  every  corporation  should 
wind  up.  But  we  have  had  scarcely  another 
wound  up  in  the  same  way,  I  do  not  see 
Nelson  R.  Norton  present,  who  built  our  first 

139 


JHemmi^cence^  of  €arlp  Chicago 

drawbridge,  upon  Dearborn  Street,  in  1834; 
and  the  old  steamer  Michigan,  Captain  Chelsey 
Blake,  was  the  first  to  pass  through  it.  He 
also  built,  in  1835,  the  sloop  Clarissa,  the  first 
sail  vessel  launched  on  Lake  Michigan.  He 
resides  at  Alden,  Minnesota.  He  was  the  Whig 
candidate  for  alderman  from  the  old  sixth  ward 
at  our  first  charter  election,  and  is  the  only 
man  upon  that  ticket  now  living. 

If  you  ask  what  were  the  principal  entertain- 
ments in  those  days,  I  would  answer:  The 
meetings  of  the  debating  society,  in  which 
all  citizens  took  an  interest.  Colonel  Hans 
Crocker,  now  living  at  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin, 
was  the  first  secretary,  in  1 83  5 .  In  that  year,  one 
of  the  questions  was:  "Are  the  frequent  Indian 
disturbances  owing  to  the  clemency  extended 
to  the  Indians  by  the  general  government?" 
Grant  Goodrich,  now  present,  led  the  debate  in 
the  negative,  and  I  think  he  would  do  so  again 
if  the  debate  should  be  opened.  As  this  ques- 
tion has  never  been  settled,  and  as  the  man  who 
led  the  debate  in  the  affirmative  is  not  living,  I 
will  appoint  Major-General  Philip  H.  Sheridan 
to  take  his  place .  We  had  occasional  theatrical 
performances.  My  earliest  recollection  in  this 
respect  runs  back  to  the  time  when  Joseph 
Jefferson,  who  has  gained  such  a  reputation  as 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  made  his  appearance  at  about 
ten  years  of  age.  Little  did  we  then  think  that 
the  lad  that  we  were  applauding  as  a  matter  of 
encouragement  was  to  receive  upon  his  merits 
140 


3Foljn  laaittoortlj 


the  applause  of  the  nation.  When  I  hear  of 
Joe  Jefferson's  fame,  I  cannot  forget  that  it  was 
Chicago  people  who  gave  him  his  first  "send- 
off."  There  are  many  persons  here  present 
who  remember  when  the  Indian  tribes  all 
through  the  Northwest  assembled  at  Chicago 
to  receive  their  annuities.  And  still  more 
remember  when  the  Indians  were  finally  re- 
moved from  all  this  region  of  country,  and  our 
Fort  Dearborn  was  abandoned  by  the  national 
troops. 

There  are  many  persons  here  tonight  who 
attended  the  first  meeting  called  to  take  into 
consideration  the  provisions  of  our  city  charter, 
on  the  evening  of  January  23,  1837.  All  went 
pleasant  until  we  came  to  the  limitation  upon 
our  city  debt.  Hon.  Henry  Brown,  the  his- 
torian, the  name  of  whose  son,  Andrew  Jackson 
Brown,  is  upon  the  list,  in  the  advocacy  of  a 
liberal  policy,  contended  that  the  child  was 
then  living  who  would  see  fifty  thousand  people 
here.  A  gentleman,  whose  name  I  afterward 
learned  was  Walter  L.  Newberry,  was  very 
active  in  opposing  the  debt  policy;  and,  when 
the  negative  vote  was  called  for,  he  seized  me 
by  the  coat-collar,  as  I  was  sitting,  and  said, 
"Stand  up,  young  man."  I  responded  that  I 
was  not  a  voter.  He  asked,  "Don't  you  intend 
to  live  here,  and  don't  you  expect  to  get  rich.-*" 
I  admitted  that  I  did.  He  gave  my  collar  an 
extra  pull,  and  said,  "Well  then,  stand  up! 
Give  these  men  the  power,  and  they  will  abuse 
141 


"Hemm^cmtt^  of  <(Earip  Cljicago 

it,  until  they  bankrupt  us!"  And  up  I  stood, 
and  I  have  been  thus  standing  on  similar  votes 
and  occasions  ever  since.  Ever  after  upon 
all  matters  of  taxation,  Mr.  Newberry  and  I 
acted  together.  I  became  associated  with  him 
in  banking,  in  railroading,  in  the  board  of  edu- 
cation, and  in  many  other  capacities,  and  found 
him  an  inveterate  foe  to  the  generally  received 
doctrine  that  a  man's  moral  responsibility  was 
any  less  for  his  public  and  corporate  action 
than  for  his  individual  action.  He  believed  in 
saving  as  well  as  in  earning,  and  was  one  of 
the  very  few,  if  not  the  only  one,  of  our  reputed 
millionaires,  who  proved  to  be  such  after  his 
death.  His  farewell  words  to  me  were  of  the 
same  meaning  as  his  first:  "Keep  up  the 
fight!" 

Our  first  mayor,  Wm.  B.  Ogden,  is  dead; 
but  upon  this  list  is  the  name  of  our  first  city 
clerk,  Isaac  N.  Arnold;  and  you  all  see  the 
city  clerk  under  our  fourth  mayor,  Thomas 
Hoyne.  And  the  publisher  of  the  first  cor- 
poration newspaper  is  now  addressing  you. 
Here  are  two  of  the  members  of  our  first  board 
of  aldermen,  John  Dean  Caton,  of  the  third, 
and  Asahel  Pierce,  of  the  fourth  ward,  these 
two  wards  then  embracing  the  whole  West 
Side.  In  Judge  Caton's  ward  there  were  but 
38  votes;  and  in  Mr.  Pierce's  59,  making  only 
97  votes  on  the  entire  West  Side.  There  were 
only  709  votes  in  the  entire  city.  The  house 
where  the  first  election  in  the  fourth  ward  was 
142 


^of^n  U^enttDortl& 


held,  then  known  as  the  Green  Tree  Hotel, 
afterward  the  Chicago  Hotel,  just  west  of  the 
Lake  Street  bridge,  northeast  corner  of  North 
Canal  Street,  is  the  oldest  building  in  our  city. 
It  was,  at  one  time,  the  best  place  for  public 
meetings  and  parties  on  that  side  of  the  river. 

The  name  of  the  second  mayor,  Buckner  S. 
Morris,  is  upon  the  list.  But  Edward  H. 
Hadduck  and  EU  B.  Williams,  of  the  first  ward, 
and  Grant  Goodrich  of  the  sixth,  who  were 
upon  his  board  of  aldermen,  are  present.  Mr. 
Hadduck  was  one  of  the  judges  of  election  of 
the  first  ward  at  our  first  municipal  election, 
the  year  before,  and  is  the  only  one  of  the 
judges  at  that  time  now  living.  I  was  chal- 
lenged because  I  was  a  boy,  and  Mr.  Edward 
H.  Hadduck  administered  the  oath.  Strange 
as  it  may  seem,  the  same  charge  of  being  under 
age  met  me  again  when  I  first  ran  for  Congress, 
and  I  suppose  I  was  the  youngest  man  in  Con- 
gress when  first  elected.  I  did  not  begin  to 
fill  up,  although  as  tall  as  I  am  now,  until 
about  35  years  of  age;  and  my  whiskers  were 
so  late  in  coming,  and  so  many  persons  were 
going  into  the  business,  that  I  never  cultivated 
the  crop. 

Our  third,  who  was  also  our  sixth  mayor, 
Benjamin  W.  Raymond,  is  here  tonight  with 
both  his  aldermen  from  the  third  ward,  in  1 839, 
Ira  Miltimore*  and  William  H.  Stow;  and  also 
Charles  McDonnell,  of  the  second,  and  Alanson 

♦Died  June  10, 1879. 

143 


titmm^tmtt^  of  <6arip  Chicago 

S.  Sherman,  of  the  third  ward,  in  1842;  and 
this  is  the  same  Sherman  who  was  mayor  in 
1844.  Here  are  the  names  of  Julius  Wads- 
worth,  of  the  first  ward,  and  John  Gage,  of  the 
third  ward,  in  1 840,  and  here  is  the  name  of 
John  DavHn,  of  the  first  ward,  and  I  see  present 
Chas.  FoUansbee,  of  the  first,  and  Peter 
Page  of  the  second,  of  the  board  of  1841. 
Here  is  the  name  of  Hugh  T.  Dickey, 
alderman  of  the  first,  in  1843.  Here  is 
Elihu  Granger,  one  of  the  aldermen  from  the 
fifth  ward,  in  1844.  Here  are  J.  Young 
Scammon,  of  the  first,  in  1845,  Levi  D.  Boone, 
and  Wm.  M.  Larrabee,  of  the  sixth,  in  1846, 
Robert  H.  Fpss,  of  the  fourth,  William  B. 
Snowhook  and  James  Lane,  of  the  ninth,  in 
1847,  John  C.  Haines,  of  the  fifth,  in  1848, 
afterward  mayor,  William  H.  Adams,  of  the 
third,  and  Amos  G.  Throop  of  the  fourth,  in 

1849,  and  Isaac  L.  Milliken,  of  the  second,  in 

1850.  I  will  carry  the  details  no  farther.  I 
wanted  to  show  you,  in  the  destruction  of  so 
many  records,  how  much  of  personal  memory 
there  is  to  substitute  for  them.  Although  the 
mayors  prior  to  and  including  1850  are  all  dead 
but  three,  we  have  here  some  member  of  every 
board  covering  that  period,  and  there  are  a 
large  number,  about  thirty  here,  who  have  been 
aldermen  since.  And  Alderman  Throop,  of 
the  board  of  1849,  is  in  the  Council  now.  And 
here  is  Amos  Grannis,  an  old  settler,  his  col- 
league, of  the  present  year,  from  the  fourth 

144 


5Foljn  IBenttDortf) 


ward;  it  seems  that  Young  America  yet  has 
some  appreciation  of  the  old  settlers.  I  will 
add,  however,  that  we  have  seven  other  mayors 
here  on  this  list  of  old  settlers,  Walter  S. 
Gurnee,  Charles  M.  Gray,  Isaac  L.  Milliken, 
Levi  D.  Boone,  John  C.  Haines,  Julian  S. 
Rumsey,  and  myself.  I  notice  in  this  room 
five  of  our  sheriffs,  Isaac  Cook,  William  L. 
Church,  John  L.  Wilson,  Timothy  M.  Bradley, 
and  John  Gray.  Also  we  have  three  post- 
masters. Hart  L.  Stewart,  Isaac  Cook,  and 
Samuel  Hoard;  four  state  senators,  Edmund 
D.  Taylor,  Samuel  Hoard,  Henry  W.  Blodgett, 
and  John  C.  Haines;  one  speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  Elijah  M.  Haines;  and  six 
members  of  the  House,  Isaac  N.  Arnold, 
Thomas  Drummond,  Augustus  H.  Burley,  J. 
Young  Scammon,  Mark  Skinner,  and  Hart  L. 
Stewart.  Three  judges  of  probate  are  here, 
Walter  Kimball,  Mahlon  D.  Ogden,  and  Thomas 
Hoyne.  Two  members  of  Congress  are  here, 
Isaac  N.  Arnold,  four  years,  under  Abraham 
Lincoln;  and  myself,  twelve  years,  at  differ- 
ent periods,  commencing  with  John  Tyler 
and  ending  with  Andrew  Johnson.  Were  it 
appropriate,  I  could  give  some  very  early 
history,  having  served  with  men  who  were  born 
before  the  American  Revolution,  and  with  one, 
John  Quincy  Adams,  who  heard  the  guns  at 
the  battle  of  Lexington.  Sufficit  to  say,  that 
I  have  represented  twenty-two  counties  running 
east  to  the  Indiana  state  line,  west  to  the 
145 


titmm^tmtt^  of  €arlp  Cfjicago 

Mississippi  River,  north  to  the  Wisconsin  state 
line,  and  south  to  the  Quincy,  Springfield,  and 
Wabash  districts.  It  takes  twelve  men  to 
represent  that  territory  now. 

Here  I  see  William  Lock,  S.J.  Surdam,  and 
James  A.  Marshall,  members  of  the  first 
Masonic  lodge  ever  organized  in  Chicago,  and 
the  eighteenth  in  the  State,  old  "LaFayette, " 
with  Carding  Jackson,  master;  and  here  are 
members  of  the  first  Odd  Fellows  lodge  also, 
and  the  ninth  in  the  state,  "Union,"  A.  G.  Bur- 
ley,  S.  B.  Walker,  E.  W.  Densmore,  Jerome 
Beecher,  D.  Horton,  and  H.  H.  Husted. 

Here  are  two  members  of  the  first  board  of 
water  commissioners,  H.  G.  Loomis,  and  A.  S. 
Sherman;  and  one  member  of  the  first  board 
of  sewerage  commissioners,  Sylvester  Lind. 

Two  United  States  district  attorneys,  Thomas 
Hoyneand  Mark  Skinner,  are  here.  Two  state's 
attorneys  are  here,  James  Grant  and  Alonzo 
Huntington.  In  1840,  July  loth,  John  Stone 
was  hung.  Mr.  Huntington  prosecuted,  at 
the  trial,  and  here  is  Robinson  Tripp,  who, 
with  myself,  was  upon  the  jury.  But,  prior 
to  that,  in  1835,  there  was  another  murderer, 
Joseph  F.  Norris,  who  took  a  change  of  venue 
to  the  nearest  county,  then  Iroquois,  where  he 
was  convicted  and  hung,  June  loth,  1836,  from 
the  limb  of  a  tree.  James  Grant,  now  present, 
was  the  prosecutor,  and  the  late  Henry  Moore, 
with  whom  I  commenced  the  study  of  law  in 
this  city,  defended  him.  I  need  not  tell  you 
146 


S^olftn  iiaentUJortfi 


that  we  have  one  Supreme  Court  judge  here, 
John  Dean  Caton.  And  then  we  have  here, 
or  upon  this  list,  three  Circuit  Court  judges, 
or  judges  under  different  names  with  equiv- 
alent jurisdiction — Hugh  T.  Dickey,  Buckner 
S.  Morris,  and  Mark  Skinner.  One  United 
States  district  judge,  Henry  W.  Blodgett,  is 
here.  And  who  does  not  know  that  that  vet- 
eran in  jurisprudence,  our  United  States  circuit 
judge,  Thomas  Drummond,  is  here,  his  original 
commission  bearing  the  signature  of  "Old 
Rough  and  Ready,"  General  Zachary  Taylor? 
And  this  suggests,  what  a  museum  of  com- 
missions we  could  establish  here  tonight,  and  full 
of  all  sorts  of  historical  reminiscences.  Col- 
onel E.  D.  Taylor  would  bring  forward  his 
commission  from  General  Andrew  Jackson,  as 
receiver  of  public  moneys.  And  Ed  H.  Had- 
duck  his  commission  for  the  same  office  from 
General  W.  H.  Harrison.  Jackson,  Harrison, 
Taylor!  What  suggestive  names!  And  then 
our  United  States  district  judge,  Henry  W. 
Blodgett,  present  tonight,  could  bring  forward 
his  commission  from  the  more  recent  General 
Ulysses  S.  Grant.  And  Mark  Skinner  could 
bring  his  as  United  States  district  attorney;  and 
Eli  B.  Williams,  as  register  of  the  Chicago 
land-office  from  John  Tyler;  and  Hart  L. 
Stewart,  as  postmaster,  from  James  K.  Polk; 
and  Wm.  B.  Snowhook,  as  collector  of  the 
port,  from  Franklin  Pierce;  and  Isaac  Cook, 
as   postmaster,   from   James    Buchanan;    and 

147 


Mtmim^ttxitt^  of  <(KarIp  €lJicago 

Samuel  Hoard,  as  postmaster,  from  Abraham 
Lincoln.  The  appointees  of  President  Van 
Buren,  and  Acting  President  Millard  Filmore 
are  numbered  with  the  dead.  Acting  President 
Andrew  Johnson  knew  not  the  old  settlers,  and 
President  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  has  not  recog- 
nized us  as  yet.  If  he  wants  his  name  in  such 
a  museum  there  is  still  an  opportunity. 

I  should  have  stated  that  the  first  collector 
of  our  port  is  here.  Colonel  WilHam  B.  Snow- 
hook.  And  here  is  the  history  of  the  first 
railroad  built  from  Chicago,  from  its  organ- 
ization to  its  final  "gobbling  up."  I  see  my 
colleagues,  Benj.  W.  Raymond,  Silas  B.  Cobb, 
and  Edward  K.  Rodgers,  here.  And  here  are 
the  names  of  William  M.  Larrabee,  our  secre- 
tary, and  Edward  B.  Talcott,  our  superintend- 
ent. The  modern  railroad  men  change  our 
name  from  "old  settlers"  to  "old  fogies,"  as 
we  paid  our  debts  and  never  omitted  a  dividend. 
We  paid  our  president  $iooo,  and  I  audited 
the  accounts  for  the  love  of  it. 

The  first  bank  was  started  here  in  1835,  the 
Chicago  branch  of  the  Illinois  State  Bank,  and 
here  I  see  three  of  its  original  directors,  Gurdon 
S.  Hubbard,  Edmund  D.  Taylor,  and  Walter 
Kimball.  And  here  is  also  Ezra  L.  Sherman, 
the  teller. 

Our  school  boards  are  well  represented  here, 

although  I  see  no  one  here  whose  appointment 

bears  date  prior  to  mine,  in  1838.     Isaac  N. 

Arnold  is  still  in  the  board,  and  here  are  also 

148 


3Foijn  tBentttJortJ 


Edwin  Blackman,  Charles  N.  Holden,  Philo 
Carpenter,  Samuel  Hoard,  and  Mark  Skinner, 
once  of  the  board. 

Who  does  not  remember  the  old  auction- 
house  of  Garret,  Brown  &  Company,  where 
the  mellifluous  voice  of  the  late  mayor,  Augustus 
Garret,  was  heard  every  evening  in  selling  lots 
all  over  the  Northwest.  Here  is  the  name  of 
Nathaniel  J.  Brown,  of  that  firm,  if  anyone 
wants  to  know  the  extent  of  the  town-lot  bus- 
iness in  those  days. 

If  any  of  you  wish  information  of  wars,  I 
would  say  that  here  are  men  whose  experience 
leads  them  to  the  War  of  1812,  Black  Hawk 
War,  and  several  other  Indian  wars,  and  the 
Mexican  War,  as  well  as  the  War  of  the  Rebel- 
lion. The  Mexican  War  is  considered  a  small 
affair  as  compared  with  the  latter;  but  its 
importance  will  be  highly  appreciated  when  we 
consider  that  it  gave  us  our  Pacific  possessions, 
and  that  the  Pacific  Railroad  was  its  legitimate 
consequence. 

I  notice  among  those  who  have  given  us 
this  splendid  entertainment  several  young  men, 
and  it  is  but  natural  that  they  should  inquire 
if  we  had  no  society  men  in  those  days.  Our 
early  settlers  were  generally  society  men,  but 
they  never  let  society  interfere  with  their  bus- 
iness. If  our  accomplishments  have  not  already 
been  demonstrated,  perhaps  we  can  make  a 
more  pleasing  demonstration,  when  to  the  tunes 
of  Mr.  Beaubien's  fiddle,  that  same  old  fiddle, 
149 


^JJemimjEJcentejef  of  <6arip  Cljicago 

we  shall  ask  you  to  join  in  the  dance  of  your 
parents  and  grandparents.  Oh!  that  that  fiddle 
could  speak!  How  many  pleasant  memories 
would  it  revive.  I  notice  a  gentleman  here 
who  was  a  model  of  a  society  man.  He  was 
at  his  place  of  business  promptly  every  day 
and  at  parties  every  night.  After  sunset  he 
would  go  farther  to  attend  a  party,  dance 
longer,  and  be  back  at  his  place  of  business 
earlier  the  next  morning  than  any  man  in  the 
city.  He  has  lived  in  pleasure  and  to  profit. 
He  brought  nothing  here;  his  notes  never  went 
to  protest,  and  now  he  has  nearly  means  enough 
to  pay  the  debts  of  almost  all  our  modern  society 
men.  If  the  society  men  of  these  days  would 
but  follow  his  example,  work  as  well  as  play, 
save  as  well  as  earn  (to  use  a  granger  phrase), 
they  would  find  a  great  deal  more  corn  on  their 
Cobb.  I  notice  also  here  the  ever  pleasant 
countenance  of  our  old-time  master  of  ceremo- 
nies, the  Lord  Chesterfield  of  the  frontier. 
When  DuPage  County  was  created  from  Cook, 
our  people  did  not  object  to  losing  the  territory, 
but  they  solemnly  protested  against  setting  off 
Colonel  Julius  M.  Warren.  But  when  the  new 
county  elected  him  to  the  legislature,  Chicago 
found  it  had  an  additional  member.  Every 
hotel-keeper  within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles  would 
give  at  least  one  party  during  the  year  and  as  no 
party  could  be  a  success  without  Colonel  Warren, 
he  always  had  the  naming  of  the  days,  and 
when  his  name  was  printed  upon  the  invitations 
150 


5Foljn  l^entttjortlj 


as  manager,  no  weather  could  prevent  a  crowd. 
Nor  must  I  forget  James  A.  Marshall,  who  is 
in  our  midst,  the  great  innovator  upon  old- 
fashioned  dances.  He  introduced  the  quadrille, 
and  those  who  were  too  old  to  learn,  objected  to 
coming  to  a  frolic  and  then  having  to  sit  still 
while  the  quadrille  was  danced.  The  matter 
was  compromised  at  first  by  having  quadrilles 
while  supper  was  being  eaten,  thus  making 
Mr.  Marshall  and  his  followers  eat  at  the  second 
table.  Mr.  Beaubien  soon  found  out  that  he 
could  call  quadrille  changes  while  fiddling,  and 
whoever  went  into  his  hotel  by  day  could  hear 
him  practicing,  calling  out,  "Balance  all," 
"Forward  two,"  "Cross  over,"  "Chasse," 
"Dos-a-dos,"  etc.,  until  the  Indians,  half- 
breeds,  servant  girls,  stage  drivers,  barkeepers, 
and  all  his  guests,  were  well  posted.  Then 
our  friend  Marshall  stirred  up  a  furious  tempest 
by  introducing  the  waltz.  Most  parents  dis- 
approved of  it,  their  daughters  rather  liked  it, 
but  the  clergymen  opened  a  tremendous  battery 
upon  it.  Previously  they  had  not  objected  to 
the  attendance  of  members  of  their  church. 
Sometimes,  they  would  even  permit  their 
daughters  to  attend  our  parties  and  would 
come  themselves  to  accompany  them  home. 
And  they  would  come  early.  For  they  liked 
our  suppers. 

Gentlemen,  in  my  zeal  I  have  forgotten  the 
length  of  time  I  have  been  talking.  Nothing 
is  so  near  my  heart  as  the  restoration  and  per- 

151 


^^emimsfcencejB?  of  €adi?  Cjjicago 

petuation  of  our  history  destroyed  by  the  fire. 
I  want  to  re-estabUsh  the  old  landmarks,  and 
here  is  the  material  to  do  it  with.  There  never 
will  be  so  many  old  settlers  together  again.  I 
look  upon  this  list  as  an  index  to  our  history. 
I  see  different  and  interesting  chapters  in  every 
countenance.  Let  each  one  write  out  what  he 
remembers  and  leave  it  with  his  friends,  or 
what  is  better,  with  the  Historical  Society; 
being  as  particular  as  possible  as  to  dates. 

You  called  upon  me  for  a  speech,  but  I 
have  preferred  to  inaugurate  a  class  in  early 
history.  Here,  in  this  list  of  invited  guests,  is 
my  roll  of  scholars.  I  have  prepared  blank 
text-books,  and  named  a  few  chapter  headings, 
under  which  you  can  write  your  experience  or 
add  other  chapter  headings,  and  write  under 
them  as  your  experience  may  best  dictate  or 
your  memory  best  serve  you.  And,  if  you 
but  do  what  you  are  able  to  do  in  this  respect 
posterity  will  be  under  obligations  to  The 
Calumet  Club  of  Chicago  for  bringing  us  to- 
gether tonight,  as  profound  and  many  times 
more  lasting  than  even  we  are  under  for  its 
unparalleled  hospitality. 


152 


Sloi^n  ®ean  Caton 

[An  Address  delivered  at  the  Reception  to  the  Settlers 

of  Chicago  Prior  to  1840,  by  the  Calumet 

Club  of  Chicago,  May  27,  1879.] 


THE  pleasing  duty  has  been  assigned  me 
by  my  associates  of  years  gone  by  of 
expressing  our  feelings  toward  you  for 
your  kind  words  and  generous  hospitality.  It 
is  a  task  I  feel  quite  unable  to  perform.  Words 
are  wanting  which  will  adequately  express  the 
sensibilities  which  are  awakened  in  the  bosom  of 
each  one  of  us,  whom  your  generous  forethought 
has  brought  together  here ;  who,  forty  years  or 
more  ago,  made  the  little  hamlet  of  Chicago  their 
home,  and  devoted  their  energies  to  laying  the 
foundations  of  this  great  city.  It  is  gratifying 
to  us  to  know  that,  as  we  are  passing  down  the 
road  that  ends  where  we  cannot  see,  those  who 
are  rising  up  to  take  our  places  in  the  labors 
of  life  feel  kindly  toward  us,  and  appreciate 
what  we  have  done,  or  at  least  attempted  to 
do.  As  I  look  about  me  and  see  gathered  here 
friends  of  so  many  years  ago,  I  am  transported 
back  to  the  time  when  we  were  all  young. 
Even  then  there  were  old  men  here,  at  least 
so  they  seemed  to  us,  among  whom  I  may 
recall  Colonel  Jean  Baptiste  Beaubien,  Dr. 
Elijah  D.  Harmon,  and  John  Wright.     They 

153 


^emmi^cente^  of  <6arlp  Cfjicago 

have  long  since  passed  away,  but  their  names 
should  never  be  forgotten.  The  old  men  called 
us  boys  then,  with  more  mainspring  than  reg- 
ulator, but  we  thought  we  were  well-balanced 
men.  You  call  us  old  men  now,  but  we  feel 
somewhat  boyish  still.  It  is  a  pleasant  retro- 
spect to  go  back  in  memory  forty  years — let 
me  go  back  forty-six  years,  when  I  here  set 
my  stake  and  commenced  the  business  of  life. 
There  were  then  not  two  hundred  people  here. 
I  was  an  old  resident  of  six  weeks'  standing 
before  two  hundred  and  fifty  inhabitants  could 
be  counted  to  authorize  a  village  incorporation 
under  the  general  laws  of  the  state.  Colonel 
Beaubien  presided  at  that  meeting,  and  at  his 
request  I  sat  beside  him  as  a  prompter,  for 
official  honors  and  responsibilities  were  new 
to  him. 

When  we  had  attained  the  dignity  of  a 
village  corporation,  with  the  wild  waters  of 
the  lake  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  broad  and 
brilliant  prairie,  still  untouched  by  the  hus- 
bandman's plowshare,  on  the  other,  we  thought 
we  were  a  great  people,  and  even  then,  though 
feebly,  discounted  the  future  of  Chicago.  Of 
those  who  were  present  at  that  memorable 
birth,  I  rejoice  to  see  many  here  present.  How 
can  I  express  our  feelings  of  gratitude  to  that 
Divine  Hand  which  has  so  long  sustained  us, 
and  bounteously  lengthened  out  our  days,  and 
again  brought  us  together,  under  conditions  of 
so  much  happiness  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  so 

154 


5Foftn  2Dcan  Caton 


goodly  a  measure  of  health?  I  think  I  can 
count  twenty,  at  least,  who  were  here  forty- 
six  years  ago,  when  Chicago  had  no  streets 
except  on  paper;  when  the  wild  grass  grew 
and  the  wild  flowers  bloomed  where  the  court 
house  square  was  located;  when  the  pine  woods 
bordered  the  lake  north  of  the  river,  and  the 
east  sides  of  both  branches  of  the  river  were 
clothed  with  dense  shrubbery  forests  to  within 
a  few  hundred  feet  of  their  junction.  Then 
the  wolves  stole  from  these  covers  by  night, 
and  prowled  through  the  hamlet,  hunting  for 
garbage  around  the  back  doors  of  our  cabins. 
Late  in  1833,  a  bear  was  reported  in  the  skirt 
of  timber  along  the  South  Branch,  when  George 
White's  loud  voice  and  bell  —  he  was  as  black 
as  night  in  a  cavern,  and  his  voice  had  the 
volume  of  a  fog  horn,  and  he  was  recognized 
as  the  town  crier — summoned  all  to  the  chase. 
All  the  curs  and  hounds,  of  high  and  low  degree, 
were  mustered,  with  abundance  of  firearms  of 
the  best  quality  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
knew  well  how  to  use  them.  Soon  bruin  was 
treed  and  despatched,  very  near  to  where  the 
Rock  Island  depot  now  stands.  Then  was  the 
time  when  we  chased  the  wolf  over  the  prairies, 
now  within  the  city  limits,  and  I  know  some 
here  were  of  the  party  who  pursued  one  right 
through  the  little  hamlet  and  onto  the  floating 
ice  near  old  Fort  Dearborn.  Oh,  those  were 
glorious  times,  when  warm  blood  flowed  rapidly, 
no  matter  how  low  stood  the  mercury.     Then  in 

155 


Mtmm^ttntt^  of  <CatIp  Cf^tcago 

winter  the  Chicago  River  was  our  skating  rink 
and  our  race  course.  Let  me  ask  John  Bates 
over  there  if  he  remembers  when  we  skated 
together  up  to  Hard  Scrabble — where  Bridge- 
port now  is — and  he  explained  to  me,  by 
pantomime  alone,  how  the  Indians  caught  musk- 
rats  under  the  ice.  And  let  me  ask  Silas  B. 
Cobb  if  he  remembers  the  trick  Mark  Beaubien 
played  on  Robert  A.  Kinzie  to  win  the  race 
on  the  ice  that  winter.  See  now  how  Mark's 
eye  flashes  fire  and  he  trembles  in  every  fibre 
at  the  bare  remembrance  of  that  wild  excite- 
ment. This  was  the  way  he  did  it.  He  and 
Kinzie  each  had  a  very  fast  pony,  one  a  pacer 
and  the  other  a  trotter.  Mark  had  trained  his 
not  to  break  when  he  uttered  the  most  unearthly 
screams  and  yells  which  he  could  pour  forth, 
and  that  is  saying  much  in  that  direction,  for 
he  could  beat  any  Pottawatomie  I  ever  heard, 
except  Gurdon  S.  Hubbard  and  John  S.  C. 
Hogan.  The  day  was  bright  and  cold.  The 
glittering  ice  was  smooth  as  glass,  the  atmos- 
phere pure  and  bracing.  The  start  was  about 
a  mile  up  the  South  Branch.  Down  came  the 
trotter  and  the  pacer  like  a  whirlwind,  neck 
and  neck,  till  they  approached  Wolf  Point,  or 
the  junction,  when  Kinzie's  pony  began  to 
draw  ahead  of  the  little  pacer,  and  bets  were 
two  to  one  on  the  trotting  nag  as  he  settled  a 
little  nearer  to  the  ice  and  stretched  his  head 
and  neck  further  out,  as  if  determined  to  win 
if  but  by  a  throat-latch.  It  was  at  this  supreme 
156 


SFol^n  2Dean  €aton 


moment  that  Mark's  tactics  won  the  day.  He 
sprang  to  his  feet  in  his  plank-built  pung,  his 
tall  form  towering  above  all  surroundings, 
threw  high  in  the  air  his  wolfskin  cap,  fran- 
tically swung  around  his  head  his  buffalo  robe, 
and  screamed  forth  such  unearthly  yells  as  no 
human  voice  ever  excelled,  broken  up  into  a 
thousand  accents  by  a  rapid  clapping  of  the 
mouth  with  the  hand.  To  this  the  pony  was 
well  trained,  and  it  but  served  to  bring  out  the 
last  inch  of  speed  that  was  in  him,  while  the 
trotter  was  frightened  out  of  his  wits,  no  doubt 
thinking  that  a  whole  tribe  of  Indians  were 
after  him,  and  he  broke  into  a  furious  run, 
which  carried  him  far  beyond  the  goal  before 
he  could  be  brought  down.  Hard  words  were 
uttered  then,  which  it  would  not  do  to  repeat 
in  a  well-conducted  Sunday  school,  but  the 
winner  laughed  and  fobed  the  stakes  with  a 
heartiness  and  zest  which  Mark  alone  could 
manifest. 

There  is  an  inspiration  in  the  memory  of 
those  glorious  days  of  fun  and  frolic  which 
quickens  the  pulse  to  full  youthful  vigor,  and 
now  to  see  so  many  of  those  around  me  who 
were  the  life  and  soul  of  those  hilarious  times, 
transports  me  back  to  them,  and  makes  me  feel 
as  if  no  long  years  of  toil  had  rolled  along  since 
then.  We  forget  for  the  moment  the  inter- 
vening time  and  remember  only  the  broad, 
unbroken  prairie,  which  then  extended  for  miles 
around  the  spot  where  this  hall  stands.  But 
15; 


^emim^ttntt^  of  oEarip  Cljicago 

you  must  not  think  that  all  our  time  was  spent 
in  fun  and  frolic.  Our  sports  were  but  epi- 
sodes, while  our  days  and  nights  were  spent 
in  labors  inspired  and  sustained  by  vigorous 
health,  indomitable  will,  and  a  full  appreciation 
of  the  lifelong  task  before  us.  We  felt  and 
knew  that  wisdom  and  energy  and  industry 
could  alone  build  up  such  a  city  as  its  geo- 
graphical position  seemed  to  require.  The 
spirit  manifested  by  those  who  commenced  the 
work  would  be  likely  to  make  its  impress  upon 
the  teeming  throngs  which  were  already  hasten- 
ing to  join  us  from  the  East  and  the  South, 
and  the  wonderful  work  wrought  by  those  who 
joined  and  came  after  us,  and  which  have  just 
been  so  truthfully  and  so  eloquently  described, 
we  flatter  ourselves  were  in  part  at  least  the 
folio  wings  of  what  we  began. 

To  us  of  the  olden  time,  who,  as  your  guests, 
feel  ourselves  so  much  honored,  contrasts  are 
continually  presenting  themselves.  T/ien  and 
flow  ever  present  themselves  side  by  side. 
Here  I  commenced  my  judicial  career,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-two,  as  a  justice  of  the  peace. 
On  the  14th  of  July,  1834,  a  judicial  election 
was  held  in  this  town,  including  the  village  and 
surrounding  country,  for  one  justice  of  the 
peace.  The  canvass  was  very  warm  and  active 
by  the  friends  of  the  two  candidates,  though 
no  party  politics  were  involved  in  the  contest, 
as  I  think  there  never  should  be  in  judicial 
elections.  One  candidate  received  172  votes, 
158 


5Fo|)n  2Dean  Caton 


and  the  other  received  47  votes.  But  219 
voters  could  be  found  in  Chicago  and  vicinity. 
Probably  this  was  the  last  election  ever  held 
here  when  every  voter  came  to  the  polls. 
Indeed,  I  regret  to  say  that  the  most  enterpris- 
ing and  thoroughgoing  men  here  have  rarely 
taken  time  to  go  and  vote,  and  their  example 
has  been  too  largely  followed,  though  not 
by  the  baser  sort.  At  the  last  presidential 
election,  three  years  ago,  Chicago  polled  62,448 
votes,  and  yet  a  large  number  of  voters  took 
no  interest  in  the  matter,  or  at  least  took 
more  interest  in  their  stores  or  their  shops. 
I  doubt  if  much  more  than  two  thirds  of  the 
voters  in  this  city  have  voted  since  1840.  How 
can  we  resist  noticing  the  contrast  between 
219  in  1834,  and  62,448  in  1876,  especially 
when  we  remember  that  the  latter  number  was 
heavily  handicapped? 

On  that  same  14th  of  July,  an  event  occurred 
of  a  commercial  character  which  should  render 
it  memorable,  and  it  deserves  to  be  recorded. 
On  that  day  came  the  first  commercial  vessel 
that  ever  passed  the  piers  into  the  Chicago  har- 
bor—  the  Ariadne,  Captain  Pickering.  Early 
on  that  morning  the  friends  of  the  successful 
candidate  assembled  at  the  piers,  which  consisted 
of  a  few  wooden  cribs,  and  dragged  the  schooner 
across  the  bar  into  deep  water,  where  all  got 
on  board  and  sailed  in  her  up  the  river  to  the 
Point,  where  the  election  was  held,  shouting 
merrily,  and  were  answered  by  those  on  shore 

159 


titmm^ttmt^  of  €arip  Cfjicago 

manifesting  an  appreciation  of  the  important 
event.  She  was  gayly  decorated  with  all  the 
bunting  which  could  be  raised,  and  we  thought 
presented  a  splendid  appearance,  the  rigging 
manned  by  all  who  could  climb  the  shrouds. 
This  kindled  an  enthusiasm  which  lasted  till 
the  last  vote  was  polled,  and  no  doubt  contrib- 
uted more  to  the  success  than  the  merits  of  the 
candidate.  The  most  active  and  efficient  man 
on  that  day,  as  I  remember,  was  the  late  George 
W.  Dole,  who  was  always  thoroughly  in  earnest, 
whether  electioneering  for  a  friend  or  attending 
to  his  commercial  affairs.  His  memory  should 
be  ever  cherished,  and  his  name  never  forgot- 
ten when  the  founders  of  this  city  are  recalled. 
The  contrast  in  the  hotels  and  of  the  mode 
of  living  in  Chicago,  is  scarcely  less  striking. 
The  first  night  I  slept  in  Chicago  was  in  a  log 
tavern,  the  name  they  went  by  then,  west  of 
the  junction  of  the  rivers,  kept  by  W.  W. 
Wattles.  The  next  day,  I  learned  that  the 
best  entertainment  was  to  be  had  at  the  crack 
boarding-house  of  the  place,  kept  by  Dexter 
Graves,  at  five  dollars  per  week.  It  was  a  log 
house  near  the  middle  of  the  square  just  north 
of  the  present  Tremont  House.  If  it  was  a 
log  house,  I  assure  you  we  had  good  fare 
and  a  right  merry  time  too.  There  were  seven 
beds  in  the  attic,  in  which  fourteen  of  us  slept 
that  summer,  and  I  fear  we  sometimes  disturbed 
the  family  with  our  carrying  on  o' nights.  I 
know  of  but  one  of  those  fourteen  boarders 
i6o 


3Fofm  2Dean  Caton 


besides  myself  now  living.  Edward  H.  Had- 
dock knows  who  slept  with  me  in  that  attic. 
Haddock  was  a  sly  fellow  then,  for  before  one 
of  us  suspected  what  he  was  at,  he  made  sure 
of  the  flower  of  that  family,  and  a  real  gem  of 
priceless  value  she  was,  who  still  survives  to 
promote  the  happiness  of  those  around  her. 
Young  ladies  were  in  demand  here  in  those 
days. 

The  first  frame  tavern  ever  built  in  Chicago 
was  by  Mark  Beaubien,  upon  whose  geniality 
advancing  years  seem  to  have  no  influence.  I 
am  sure  there  are  some  here  present  who  were 
then  his  guests.  There  he  kept  tavern,  to  use 
his  own  expression  at  that  time,  like — (the 
Judge  hesitated.  A  voice  —  "How?")  "Shall 
I  say  it,  Mark?"  (Mr.  Beaubien  answered, 
"Yes! ")  Well,  then,  he  said  he  kept  tavern 
"like  hell!" 

To  go  back  to  that  primitive  time,  and  to 
think  of  those  who  are  gone  and  those  who  are 
left,  we  may  gratefully  acknowledge  that  a  very 
large  proportion  have  been  spared  through  so 
many  years  of  active  life.  General  Strong  has 
recalled  the  names  of  a  number  of  the  promi- 
nent early  settlers  of  Chicago  who  have  passed 
beyond  the  reach  of  your  hospitality.  Allow 
me  to  recall  the  names  of  two  who  have  been 
taken  from  the  ranks  of  my  own  profession, 
and  who  came  to  Chicago  the  same  year  with 
myself — 1833 .  Their  learning  and  their  talents 
would  have  made  them  conspicuous  at  any  bar. 
161 


JHemmi^cmce^  of  <!Earip  Cljicago 

All  who  knew  them  will  join  me  in  paying  a 
tribute  of  respect  to  the  memories  of  Giles 
Spring  and  James  H.  Collins.  Besides  these, 
there  were  several  other  lawyers  who  located 
in  Chicago  during  the  same  year,  among  whom 
I  may  mention  the  name  of  Edward  Casey, 
a  most  genial  gentleman.  All  of  these  are  long 
since  gone,  and  I  alone  am  left  to  represent 
that  earliest  Chicago  bar. 

(Here  a  question  was  raised  by  some  of  the 
old-timers  as  to  whether  Mr.  James  H.  Collins 
came  in  the  year  1833,  but  Judge  Caton  settled 
it,  stating  that  he  finished  his  legal  studies  in 
Mr.  Collins'  office  in  New  York,  and  came 
directly  thence  to  Chicago,  when  he  wrote  back 
to  his  former  preceptor  an  account  of  the 
country,  on  the  receipt  of  which  Mr.  Collins 
made  his  arrangements  to  come  west,  and 
arrived  in  Chicago  in  September,  1833;  and 
in  February  following  he  entered  into  partner- 
ship with  Mr.  Collins  in  the  practice  of  the  law, 
constituting  the  firm  of  Collins  &  Caton.) 

Resuming,  Judge  Caton  said :  To  those  who 
have  not  been  eye-witnesses,  it  seems  incredible 
that  in  the  adult  lifetime  of  so  many  of  us  here 
present  a  city  of  half  a  million  of  inhabitants 
has  grown  up  from  nothing,  and  that  what  was 
then  a  rich,  wild  waste  for  five  hundred  miles 
or  more  around,  has  been  subdued,  cultivated, 
and  populated  by  millions  of  hardy,  industrious, 
and  intelligent  agriculturists.  The  marvel  is 
the  growth  of  the  coujitry  rather  than  the  city. 
162 


^Tolftn  2Dean  Caton 


The  latter  was  compelled  by  the  former,  and 
indeed  has  never  kept  pace  with  it. 

Still,  to  those  who  have  witnessed  all  this, 
it  seems  more  like  a  dream  than  a  reality.  To 
those  who  have  not  witnessed  the  growths  of 
cities  and  country  in  this  occidental  land,  many 
can  hardly  believe  that  he  who  addresses  you 
now,  opened  the  first  office  for  the  practice  of 
the  law  in  Chicago.  They  have  often  called 
me  the  father  of  the  Chicago  bar,  and  proud  I 
am  of  such  a  progeny.  In  numbers  they  are 
truly  great,  and  in  ability,  in  learning,  in 
integrity,  and  in  patriotism  I  will  proudly  com- 
pare them  with  any  other  bar  in  the  United 
States.  I  have  ever  tried  to  so  bear  myself 
that  no  one  should  blush  at  the  mention  of  my 
name,  and  I  most  gratefully  acknowledge  that 
they  have  always  shown  me  a  filial  affection, 
ever  treating  me  with  the  greatest  respect  and 
confidence,  omitting  no  opportunity  to  do  me 
honor.  This  is  a  consoling  reflection,  and  a 
sweet  experience  in  the  decline  of  life. 

Would  time  permit,  it  would  not  be  unbe- 
coming in  me  to  follow  my  friend  who,  in  your 
behalf,  has  extended  to  us  so  cordial  a  welcome, 
in  the  great  changes  which  have  been  here 
wrought  in  so  short  a  time — for  remember, 
that  the  period  of  one  human  life  is  but  a  day 
in  the  life  of  a  people.  But  I  must  forbear. 
Really,  it  seems  like  mystery  that  what  was 
but  yesterday  a  very  little  village — for  it  seems 
but  yesterday  that  I  was  a  very  young  man — 

163 


memini^cence^  of  €at\p  Chicago 

has  today  grown  to  be  so  great  a  city.  Some- 
times despotic  power  has  builded  cities  in  the 
frozen  North  and  in  the  genial  South;  but 
a  Peter  and  a  Constantine,  with  national 
resources,  could  never  equal  the  magic  results 
which  we  have  here  witnessed  as  the  voluntary 
works  of  freeborn  enterprise,  here  in  the  tem- 
perate zone,  where  no  ancient  civilization  had 
left  its  work.  It  lacks  but  antiquated  ruins 
and  crumbling  columns  to  persuade  the  traveler 
that  he  is  in  some  great  city  of  the  Old  World, 
where  modern  architecture  has  wiped  out  many 
of  the  evidences  of-  departed  grandeur  and 
supplied  its  place  with  the  improvements  of 
later  times.  But  the  end  is  not  yet.  If  we 
saw  the  very  beginning,  you  too  have  seen  but 
the  beginning.  When  the  youngest  man  among 
you  shall  have  passed  through  the  active  scenes 
which  lie  before  him,  and  shall  feel  that  his 
work  is  nearly  done,  he  will  stand  amid  a  suc- 
ceeding generation,  and  tell  those  who  shall 
have  arisen  to  take  the  places  of  him  and  his 
contemporaries,  of  what  he  reniembers  of  the 
present  time  as  of  the  beginning  of  Chicago, 
or  at  least  of  its  early  youth.  Then  our  voices 
will  be  hushed,  to  be  no  more  heard  forever, 
and  may  we  not  fondly  hope  that  he  will  still 
kindly  remember  us,  and  that  we  here  lived  and 
labored  before  his  time.  So,  too,  may  we  hope 
that  this  Calumet  Club  may  flourish  those  forty 
years  or  more  to  come,  and  that  its  members 
still  will  stretch  forth  the  hand  of  welcome  to 
164 


S^otjn  2Dean  €aton 


those  who  shall  survive  from  now  to  then,  as 
cordially  as  you  have  extended  your  courtesies 
to  us. 

If  we  have  talked  only  of  Chicago  and  its 
progress,  we  must  not  forget  that  Chicago  is 
not  phenomenal,  but  it  is  the  whole  great  West 
that  is  phenomenal.  We  have  other  great 
cities  in  this  grand,  magnificent  valley,  whose 
growth,  whose  enterprise,  and  whose  greatness 
should  equally  command  our  admiration;  many 
of  whose  early  founders  are  yet  spared,  to  hear 
the  expressions  of  gratitude  and  to  receive  the 
honors  which  they  so  richly  deserve.  Let  us 
not  say  that  there  is  a  rivalry  between  these 
great  cities  of  the  West;  but  there  is  a  noble 
emulation  as  to  which  shall  do  most  for  the 
honor  and  the  glory  of  our  beloved  country. 

Nothing  would  be  so  agreeable  to  me  as  to 
talk  to  you  by  the  hour  of  ancient  Chicago,  when 
the  wild  waters  of  the  lake,  on  the  one  hand, 
were  rarely  vexed  by  the  ships  of  commerce, 
and  the  wild  flowers  which  covered  the  broad 
prairies  on  the  other,  were  undisturbed  by  cul- 
tivation and  uncropped  by  flocks  and  herds — 
save  the  wild  deer  that  roamed  at  large  over 
their  broad  bosoms;  but  I  fear  you  will  think 
I  am  becoming  a  little  senile  in  my  enthusiasm. 

Especially  do  I  like  to  talk  of  the  olden  times 
when  I  see  around  me  so  many  of  those  old-time 
friends,  with  many  of  whom  I  have  not  clasped 
hands  for  twenty  or  thirty  years.  Here  is  my 
old  friend,  Mark  Beaubien,  of  whom  I  have  so 
165 


llemimjefccnce^  of  €arip  Cl^icago 

often  spoken — because  he  is  so  worthy  of 
mention,  and  because  his  name  is  so  closely 
interwoven  with  all  our  sports  and  joyous  gath- 
erings, when  we  were  all  young  together.  He 
used  to  play  the  fiddle  at  our  dances,  and  he 
played  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  set  every  heel 
and  toe  in  the  room  in  active  motion.  He 
would  lift  the  sluggard  from  his  seat,  and  set  him 
whirling  over  the  floor  like  mad.  If  his  play- 
ing was  less  artistic  than  that  of  Ole  Bull,  it 
was  a  thousand  times  more  inspiring  to  those 
who  are  not  educated  up  to  a  full  appreciation 
of  what  would  now  create  a  furor  in  Chicago; 
but  I  will  venture  the  assertion  that  Mark's  old 
fiddle  would  bring  ten  young  men  and  women 
to  their  feet  and  send  them  through  the  mazes 
of  the  dance,  while  they  would  sit  quietly 
through  Ole  Bull's  best  performances — 
pleased,  no  doubt,  but  not  enthused  so  that 
they  could  not  retain  their  seats.  That  was 
long  years  since;  but  if  he  has  that  same  old 
fiddle  still,  he  can,  I  doubt  not,  draw  the  bow 
now  in  such  a  way  as  to  thrill  those,  at  least, 
in  whom  it  will  awaken  pleasing  memories  of 
days  and  nights  when  young  blood  coursed 
wildly  and  joy  was  unrestrained.  To  show 
you  that  this  is  so,  and  how  he  did  it  then,  I 
call  on  him  to  play  some  of  those  sweet  old 
tunes,  if  he  has  that  same  old  fiddle  yet. 


I66 


Slonatl^an  goung  ^cammon 

[An  Address  delivered  at  the  Reception  to  the  Settlers 

of  Chicago  Prior  to  1840,  by  the  Calumet 

Club  of  Chicago,  May  27,  1879.] 


I  WISH  to  hear  from  so  many  of  the  gentle- 
men present,  whose  faces  I  have  not  seen 
before  for  many  years,  but  whom  I  saw 
nearly  forty-four  years  ago,  when  I  came  to 
Chicago,  that  I  shall  refrain  from  making  a 
speech.  I  shall  not  make  any  remarks,  except 
to  correct,  on  my  own  account,  and  on  account 
of  the  old  settlers  here,  an  error  in  the  address 
which  we  have  listened  to  with  so  much 
pleasure.  I  wish  to  tender  my  thanks  to 
General  Strong  for  the  very  eloquent,  able, 
classical,  and  truly  historical  address  which  he 
has  made  at  this  rpeeting,  and  to  express  the 
wish  that  it  will  not  be  allowed  to  pass  into 
oblivion,  but  will  be  printed  in  a  permanent 
form,  and  placed,  if  not  in  archives  of  this 
Club,  at  least  in  the  archives  of  the  city,  and 
of  the  Historical  Society,  and  in  the  libraries 
of  all  the  old  settlers,  and  of  the  new  settlers 
who  wish  to  learn  and  remember  the  history  of 
Chicago.  I  wish,  in  this  connection,  to  correct 
one  or  two  statements.  It  was  said  that  Mayor 
Chapin  recommended  the  sale  of  the  first  great 
school  building,  or  its  being  converted  into 
167 


llmihnjefccnce^  of  aEarip  Chicago 

an  insane  asylum,  for  the  purpose  of  confining 
gentlemen  in  it  who  had  been  instrumental  in 
wasting  the  people's  money  in  building  "big 
schoolhouses."  It  was  not  Mayor  Chapin 
who  made  that  proposition.  John  P.  Chapin 
was  one  of  the  most  noble  men  who  lived  in 
Chicago.  He  was  an  early  mayor,  but  subse- 
quent to  Mayor  Garrett,  succeeding  him  in  office 
in  1846,  and  was  one  of  our  largest  and  most 
influential  and  enterprising  merchants — a  man 
who  always  stood  to  the  front,  in  favor  of 
every  true  enterprise  and  every  measure  that 
tended  to  prove  and  extend  the  power,  influence 
and  prosperity  of  the  city  of  Chicago. 

There  is  one  other  man,  now  departed  to  his 
long  home,  however,  who  deserves  a  great  deal 
of  credit,  in  relation  to  the  schools  of  the  city, 
and  I  beg  permission  to  say  a  few  words  in 
his  commendation.  That  man  was  Dr.  Josiah 
C.  Goodhue,  and  if  I  recollect  right,  he  was 
one  of  the  first  aldermen  o^the  city.  He  was 
one  of  the  committee  who  designed  the  seal  of 
the  city,  which  I  recollect  was  called  "Dr. 
Goodhue's  little  baby."  He  it  was  to  whom 
we  are  indebted  very  much  for  our  present 
school  system.  The  public  schools  had  been 
tried  in  Chicago,  and  proved  to  be  a  failure. 
While  he  was  a  member  of  the  first  council — 
I  think  every  member  of  the  council  was  Demo- 
cratic—  one  evening  he  came  into  my  office, 
which  was  very  near  then  where  it  is  now, 
on  the  south  side  of  Lake  near  Clark  Street, 
168 


5onatl)an  §oung  ^cammon 

and  lamented  over  the  condition  of  things  in 
Chicago.  It  was  after  the  panic  of  1837,  which 
was  vastly  worse  than  the  panic  of  1873,  and 
everything  was  very  depressed.  "Nothing," 
he  said,  "could  be  done  here  in  the  West. 
The  people  of  Chicago  had  voted  down  the  free 
school  system."  You  will  recollect,  in  1835, 
the  people  voted  down  the  first  local  free 
school  bill  we  had  obtained  from  the  legislature 
for  Chicago,  and  he  said  we  could  not  have 
any  schools.  I  said,  playfully,  to  Dr.  Goodhue, 
we  can  have  free  schools,  and  if  you  will  put 
the  matter  into  my  hands,  I  will  establish  a 
free  school  system  that  will  be  satisfactory  to 
the  city  of  Chicago.  He  said  he  would  do  it. 
I  said,  "You  cannot  do  it;  you  and  every 
member  of  the  council  are  Democrats,  and  I 
am  a  Whig."  He  said:  "That  makes  no 
difference.  If  you  will  take  hold  of  it,  you 
shall  have  unlimited  power  to  do  what  you 
choose,  and  the  council  will  sustain  you."  I 
said,  if  he  would  do  that,  I  would  give  as  much 
time  as  was  necessary  to  it;  but  I  said,  he 
could  not  get  the  council  to  agree  to  it.  He 
said,  "I  think  you  are  mistaken;  I  think  you 
can  have  your  own  way  about  everything.  I 
will  consult  the  council,  and  let  you  know  next 
week."  About  a  week  afterward,  he  came  to 
my  office,  and  told  me  that  the  council  were 
all  agreed,  and  if  I  would  take  hold  of  the 
matter,  I  might  write  my  own  ordinances  and 
laws,  and  they  would  give  me  supreme  power, 
169 


^Hemmi^cence^  of  Carip  Cfjicago 

within  all  reasonable  bounds.  I  did  so.  I 
wish  to  say  this,  not  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
counting anything  I  have  done,  but  to  give 
to  the  common  council  of  Chicago,  which 
differed  from  me  in  politics,  and  of  which  you, 
Mr.  Chairman  [Judge  Caton],  were  a  member, 
and  to  Dr.  Goodhue,  the  credit  of  the  first  act 
which  culminated  in  the  permanent  establish- 
ment of  the  public  schools  of  Chicago.  The 
council  put  the  whole  matter  into  the  hands  of 
one  of  their  political  opponents,  who  was  then 
supposed  to  be  an  ambitious  man,  and  one  who 
never  lost  that  reputation  until  his  wings  were 
scorched  by  the  Great  Fire,  in  order  to  further 
the  great  cause  of  public  instruction;  and  we  are 
indebted  now  for  our  excellent  school  system  to 
the  stone  that  was  first  laid  by  Dr.  Goodhue. 
I  wish  to  say  as  to  the  first  board,  of  which  I 
was  a  member  for  several  years,  it  was  selected 
upon  non-partisan  and  non-sectarian  ideas,  and 
served  faithfully  and  conscientiously.  The 
memory  of  some  of  its  leading  members  is  per- 
petuated in  the  naming  of  our  schools. 

The  first  public  school  building  which  was 
erected  in  Chicago  was  called  Dearborn  School, 
and  it  was  on  the  north  side  of  Madison  Street, 
east  of  Dearborn.  It  was  built  in  1844,  while 
I  was  in  the  board. 

It  was,  at  that  time,  the  practice  to  select 
those  who  were  supposed  to  be  good  men  for 
the  places  of  aldermen,  and  to  insist  on  such 
men  taking  their  turn  in  serving  the  public. 
170 


3Fonatjjan  ioung  J>camm(m 

Mr.  Edward  H.  Haddock,  one  of  our  oldest 
and  wealthiest  citizens, who  is  here  this  evening, 
and  who  had  served  a  term  as  alderman  of  the 
first  ward,  came  to  my  house  one  morning  in 
the  spring  of  1845,  and  said:  "You  must  run 
for  alderman  in  this  ward  this  year;  and  if  you 
will  run,  John  Calhoun  (who  was  a  Democrat, 
and  my  neighbor)  will  run  with  you,  and  you 
shall  be  elected  without  any  opposition."  I 
said  I  had  too  much  to  attend  to,  but  he  in- 
sisted and  I  finally  consented  to  do  so.  When 
the  thing  was  made  known  to  the  leading  men 
of  the  Whig  party,  to  which  I  belonged,  they 
said  the  first  ward  was  the  only  Whig  ward, 
and  we  ought  not  to  forego  our  right  to  put 
two  Whigs  in  the  council.  I  then  said  I 
would  not  run.  But  Mr.  George  W.  Meeker, 
who  was  one  of  the  board  of  school  directors, 
while  walking  with  me  up  Dearborn  Street, 
met  Alvin  Calhoun,  a  prominent  partisan 
Whig,  and  said  to  him,  "We  are  going  to 
nominate  Scammon  for  alderman  tonight." 
Mr.  Calhoun  replied,  "We  can't  elect  Scam- 
mon." Said  Meeker,  "Why  not."  He  re- 
sponded: "I  have  nothing  to  say  against 
Scammon.  He  is  a  good  man  except  that  he 
goes  in  for  building  too  big  schoolhouses. 
The  people  don't  want  their  money  wasted  in 
that  way,"  and  I  could  not  get  the  nomination, 
or  if  I  did  I  could  not  be  elected.  The  Whig 
nominating  convention  was  held  that  night  at 
the  old  Mansion  House,  on  the  north  side  of 
171 


titmini^ttntt^  of  €arlp  Cfjicago 

Lake  Street,  between  State  and  Dearborn,  and 
I  was  nominated  with  very  slight  opposition. 
But  I  declined  to  run  so  long  as  anyone  was 
opposed  to  my  nomination.  Mr.  Haddock 
then  said  I  had  no  right  to  decline;  and  he 
offered  a  resolution,  which  was  almost  unani- 
mously adopted,  that  I  should  not  be  permitted 
to  decHne.  In  consideration  of  the  ground  of 
opposition  stated  to  Mr.  G.  W.  Meeker,  in  my 
presence  as  before  stated,  I  concluded  to  run, 
and  to  test  the  question  whether  "big  school- 
houses"  were  unpopular,  and  to  see  whether 
it  was  true,  as  Alvin  Calhoun  had  said,  "that 
no  one  who  built  great  schoolhouses  could  be 
elected."  Mr.  Calhoun  had  stated,  in  the 
conversation  alluded  to,  that  Scammon  "was 
crazy  on  the  subject  of  schools,  and  the  people 
would  not  allow  their  money  to  be  wasted." 
I  made  up  my  mind  I  would  try  that  single 
question,  and  I  got  both  a  larger  vote  and  a 
larger  majority  than  any  man  had  ever  had  for 
alderman  in  the  city;  and  this  seemed  to  settle 
the  question  as  to  the  popularity  of  big  school- 
houses. 

In  1845,  Augustus  Garrett,  the  Democratic 
candidate,  was  elected  mayor  at  the  same 
time;  and  when  Mr.  Mahlon  D.  Ogden,  who  is 
now  present  and  who  was  also  elected  an  alder- 
man at  the  same  election  that  I  was  elected  an 
alderman,  and  I  took  our  seats  in  the  council, 
the  mayor  read  his  message,  in  which  he  de- 
nounced the  extravagant  school  policy  and 
172 


3Fonatf)an  ioung  J)cammon 

proposed  that  the  pubHc  schoolhouse  on  Madi- 
son Street,  which  was  too  large  to  be  ever 
filled  with  scholars,  should  be  sold  or  converted 
into  an  insane  asylum. 

I  wish  to  do  justice  to  the  memory  of  the 
late  John  P.  Chapin  and  to  the  memory  of  Dr. 
Goodhue  in  relation  to  the  great  question  of 
public  instruction.  I  am  sorry  I  have  not  time 
to  allude  to  other  matters,  or  more  than  to 
mention  the  name  of  a  great  man  to  whom,  in 
my  opinion,  we  are  indebted  more  than  to  any 
other,  and  to  whom  the  whole  Northwest  is 
indebted  for  public  improvements  more  than 
to  any  other  man  since  I  have  lived  in  Chicago 
—  a  man  who  came  to  Chicago  in  1835  — 
WilUam  B.  Ogden. 

If  one  minute  more  will  be  allowed  to  me,  I 
wish  to  pay  tribute  of  respect  to  one  of  five 
or  six  lawyers  I  found  here  in  1 83  5,  when  I 
landed  upon  the  then  harborless  shore  of  Chi- 
cago— one  of  our  best  citizens,  who  is  now 
lying  on  a  sick-bed  on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 
He  and  I  had  an  office  together  over  forty-two 
years  ago,  precisely  where  my  office  is  now. 
He  was  a  man,  Mr.  Chairman  (Judge  John 
Dean  Caton),  you  knew  well.  He  was  the 
second  mayor  of  Chicago,  and  elected  over  a 
leading  Democrat,  while  he  was  a  Whig,  in  a 
city  where  the  Democratic  majority  was  so  large 
that  the  year  before  every  officer  was  a  Demo- 
crat; but  he  had  been  a  partner  of  Edward 
Casey  before.     He  was  with  Judge  Goodrich 

173 


^emm^tmtt^  of  €arlp  Cljicago 

afterward,  and  you  and  I  know  he  was  the  best 
lawyer  ever  in  the  city  of  Chicago  or  any  other 
place,  on  the  wrong  side  of  a  question  that 
had  no  merits  in  it.  He  not  only  had  that 
character,  but  what  was  better,  that  of  a  good 
lawyer,  a  good  man,  and  a  good  citizen,  and  he 
made  a  good  judge  of  our  courts,  to  which 
office  he  was  elected  by  the  people.  I  refer  to 
the  Hon.  Buckner  S.  Morris.  Peace  to  his  last 
days  and  to  his  memory.  I  am  sorry  he  is  not 
here.  He  was  one  of  us  in  the  olden  time. 
We  liked  him  then,  and  we  do  not  forget  him 
now. 


174 


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